Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am not going to labour the points. The issues at stake here are about the chair of the commission. We were trying to allow the members of the committee themselves to decide the chair, removing that function from the Public Appointments Service, PAS. On the section the Minister referred to, I will not repeat all of the points made earlier but it is expertise in effective board management and corporate governance. The Minister said he does not agree with me. It is not me he is disagreeing with, however, but with the entire Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality. It voted to remove this criterion on Committee Stage. It was the will of all of the Opposition.

The other Deputies have articulated the points very well so there is no point in me dealing with that. It is not, however, about a non-legal chair. It is about the process of how the chair would be appointed and what type of a person the chair should be. We are allowing for the group to appoint its own chair but also ensuring that he or she does not come from the elite area we are trying to break up, refresh and in which to have something different. We honestly think the people on the commission are best placed to decide among themselves how that might be done. We are talking about a new approach. We are trying to have a representation from broader society but yet the wording here replicates criteria used on many other similar bodies. It is entirely inappropriate in this instance.

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