Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that section 6 does not guarantee what the Minister has outlined. Section 6 would allow for that, but also allow for other options. That is our concern. I refer to the unanimously agreed committee pre-legislative scrutiny report. While our preference is for a reformed panel system, recommendation 10 in our report states that, should the legislation proceed with the ministerial committee system outlined in the general scheme, it should prescribe the organisation that may nominate members to the board's committee, reflecting the panels etc. If the Bill set out that the Minister shall set up a committee, that would be preferable. At the moment, we do not know whether he will set up a committee because reference is made in the general scheme of the Bill to the Minister setting up a committee or some other procedure. In section 6, the Minister has reversed that and has said he will set up a procedure which may involve a committee. If the Bill stated the Minister would set up a committee and prescribe the organisations that would populate the committee from a range of professional bodies, including some of the bodies already on the panel system as well as other bodies like the Irish Environmental Network, IEN, or organisations representing civil society, that would be an improvement. If the Bill went on to say there would be a public call for expressions of interest for ordinary board members and an interview process, and a panel of experts, as set out in the Bill, would process those applications and forward recommendations to the Minister, we could have a conversation about that. It might be a compromise.

However, section 6 does not guarantee that. The worry we have is the Minister is asking us to pass the Bill and has said he will come back with a report to the committee next year. Given that he asked us to do pre-legislative scrutiny and before we had completed it he had introduced Bill in the Seanad, he will understand it is difficult for us to agree to that. Much of what the Minister has said is eminently sensible and would be a reasonable compromise in respect of what many of us want. However, it is not what the Bill states.

My big worry is that I do not think the Minister knows what this procedure is. That is the issue. I do not think the officials who provided the Minister with advice and the Minister and his Government colleagues have made a decision on the procedure. The reason this is before us is to give the Minister latitude to make that decision. That is a real problem for the Opposition. I do not think we are a million miles apart from the kind of system we would like to see. We are all agreed it should not be straight from the Public Appointments Service, PAS, or the old panel system. However, the Minister is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and that is something that would be very hard for any of us on this side of the House to accept.

I do not expect the Minister to consider any of the amendments where we try to introduce a hybrid system. All amendment No. 1 asks the Minister to do is what he has just offered to us, but on a formal and statutory footing rather than a footing we have to take on trust. That is not an unreasonable thing to do given this procedure has not yet been decided and will not be up and running by the time the committee starts meeting early next year. Therefore, the Minister could do this without creating any delay whatsoever. We would have a much better system and, crucially, a system that has cross-party Opposition and Government support.

It is a little bit like the turbulent final hours of the electoral reform legislation. We all worked on a strong cross-party basis. We wanted the legislation to go through with the unanimous support of the House so that the public would know it is above party politics. We will end up having a division between Government and Opposition because the Minister is not guaranteeing what the scheme will be. That is unfortunate because it would send the wrong signal out to the public at a time when cross-party Government and Opposition unity would be of maximum benefit to the restoration of public confidence in the board.

See this speech in context