Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendment. It is not good enough to confine this measure to people making declarations if they believe there are conflicts of interest. The Government voted down the idea that representatives of ordinary people should be considered for membership of the board. This has left all of these other categories of investment, treasury management, risk management and corporate finance. It is inevitable that we will end up with people who have fingers in many pies in private capitalist institutions and enterprises. The least taxpayers should expect with the agency in charge of considerable tranches of public funding, supposedly on their behalf, is that its members' interests would be made public. What is wrong with this in the eyes of a Government that is supposedly in favour of transparency and accountability?

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