Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Would the Minister give a commitment in principle in respect of all such institutions under her remit as well as organisations that are in receipt of significant funding, although they may not be under her direct control, to ensure that from now on - contrary to Fine Gael policy, I have to say - there will be a minimum of two members of the staff on each governing board or body, whatever form it takes, one a woman and one a man. There should be a mechanism whereby people can bring issues up at board level, yet in all the reports we have seen this seems to be what was totally missing. People were very unhappy about what was happening but they had no way to address it.

When my party went into government with Fine Gael, it wanted to combine all the artistic bodies into one entity. It wanted to abolish the boards of each of the national cultural institutions. Deputy Tóibín has raised the National Museum. If there was staff representation of, at a minimum, one woman and one man, at least there would be a vehicle whereby material could be raised at board level. We can talk about all the HR stuff we like. This is about people being really badly treated. They must have been very shocked even to have been spoken to or about in the manner reported. The same is true of the museum. Some of the quotes on the museum are really horrific.

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