Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad the Minister of State has confidence in his own Department. However, I find it bizarre how he or the Minister, Deputy Ross, can have confidence in their own Department yet be incapable of putting one of the two senior people in charge onto the interview board. Even if this process had to be done outside of PAS, it is incomprehensible to me that a Department is responsible for an agency whose total funding comes from the taxpayer, yet not one single person from the Department was put on the interview panel. I know who is on the interview panel, as a matter of interest, and it could have done with a member of the Department.

I am glad the Minister of State met the chairman because the Minister, Deputy Ross, has not had time to meet the chairman of one of the most important agencies in his Department, according to the reply I received. The Minister of State said that Fáilte Ireland has indicated in writing a preferred candidate. Is that candidate being put forward, and will his or her salary be kept within the public service caps? Will the Minister of State confirm and guarantee that here and now? I would like that to be known.

Regarding the overlap, which the Minister of State says happened regarding the process being undertaken, that is irrelevant because he was in place very soon afterwards and could have stopped it. I am sure he was briefed in this regard at the first meeting of his ministerial management advisory committee, MinMAC, so that could have changed straight away.

The Minister, Deputy Ross, is a hypocrite if he makes an appointment through this process and does not use the Public Appointments Service for one of the most senior appointments he will ever make as a Minister. There are jobs in his Department that go through the Public Appointments Service, so not to put this position through that system smacks of total hypocrisy by the Minister involved, and I ask the Minister of State not to be party to it.

See this speech in context