Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to speak on this motion of no confidence in the Tánaiste. The timing is remarkably fitting. We have come to the end of five shameful years of a Labour Party in government which has left many people worse off than they were even in the difficult times when it took over.

On the State board's appointment issue, which brought about this motion, I have a press release from 25 November 2014, entitled, Howlin Publishes State Board Guidelines. It stated:

Speaking after Cabinet, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, commented:

These guidelines set out clearly how the new appointments process for State Boards will work in practice. They will assist all Departments to engage effectively with the Public Appointments Service to draw up clear specifications of board roles. These can then be openly advertised so that the expressions of interest can be sought from the widest possible pool. The Public Appointments Service will then assemble a shortlist of suitable candidates for the Minister to select from.

The Minister added:

This new process will improve corporate governance on our State Boards, widen the pool from which members of State Boards are drawn, and ensure that the process around appointments to State Boards is [wait for it] transparent. I would urge anyone interested in serving on a State Board to visit stateboards.ieand express an interest. [Unless one is on the inside track with the Labour Party or other Ministers.]

The note for editors accompanying this press release stated:

The guidelines published will secure a high degree of transparency in the selection of candidates for appointment by the relevant Minister. ... Under the new arrangements assessment of the suitability of a candidate for a board position will be performed by Public Appointments Service.

That was 100% good spin. Many people probably bought it and thought it sounded good. Many people would have said the Government was genuine in its efforts to reform appointments to State boards.

On 26 November 2014, I issued a press release entitled, Howlin Blows Chance to Reform State Appointment Process. Despite the PR and the spin, it was clear to me Ministers had a back door available to them to allow them sidestep the legislation in its entirety. In that press release, I stated:

Minister Brendan Howlin announced a new model for dealing with these matters. He introduced guidelines which he would request Ministers to implement. [He was only going to request Ministers and even if they accepted the guidelines, they were still only guidelines and not statutory.] I believe these voluntary guidelines will not be satisfactory and the public require a clear statutory process that they can be satisfied will be implemented in full.

That is why on 26 November 2014, I introduced the State Boards (Appointments) Bill 2014 in the Dáil. I stated at the time:

The essential difference between this legislation and the Government’s proposals is that Fianna Fáil believes that this matter needs to be dealt with on a statutory basis and not by way of guidelines, merely drawn up to assist Ministers. If the Government is serious about political reform and commitment to real openness and transparency it will accept this legislation.

From day one, the Government was pulling a fast one. It fooled many of the people on that occasion but not all the people. At this stage, I do not believe the Government has fooled anyone because the public has actually seen through it. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, or Minister Howlin, as he refers to himself in his own press releases, did a snow job on the public and the media, trying to convince them with what he was doing with appointments to State boards. However, the substance was always known to the members of the Cabinet. These were only guidelines which they could ignore if they liked and they could carry on in their merry way, as we have seen them doing.

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