Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response to my questions. What I do not hear from him, though, is any argument that would claim, from his point of view, that there is anything radically wrong with the principle of nominating bodies being involved in the process of appointing members of the board, as they have been in the past. I have not heard that from the Minister at all. It seems to me that he has simply made his mind up, or his officials have helped him to make his mind up, that this is a bad idea and that this process, while it is in need of reform, is, as far as he is concerned, incapable of being reformed. He is throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater now and starting again. That is the wrong direction of travel for something so important. I believe that the nominating bodies process, the panel process, is eminently capable of being reformed. Aspects of it need to be reformed anyway, and I urge the Minister not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I urge him to take what is good from this process, such as independent experts with knowledge and experience of the field using their knowledge and expertise to guide the decisions of the board. I ask him to reflect on that.

The ironic thing is that the Minister says he is dispensing with that because what he wants is a swift, expeditious process to appoint members of the board and to get on with the job because there are loads of backlogs dealing with An Bord Pleanála cases and we just need to knuckle down and get this done. Some tweaks to the nominating bodies element could actually resolve that. There are ready-made bodies with nominating powers under the panel system. The Minister could use that, reform it moderately and proceed on that basis.

I absolutely agree that there should be public processes to ensure a diversity of views and opinions on the board or at commissioner level, as it will be next year under the Minister's proposed new legislation we are all reading about. He says he wants that open, transparent system for appointment to the board, but I do not believe that section 6, as it is written, will actually do that to the extent he claims. We have tabled an amendment, amendment No. 28, that would, I think, strengthen that and honour that commitment to a public, transparent, open process for appointments to the board. My party has a very strong, honourable track record in respect of transparency in public life and the appointment of people to public positions. In reality, the way in which part of section 6 is drafted is not as open as the Minister would claim. It seems to me that it will deliver a system whereby there will be a degree of pre-screening anyway before people are invited to apply, so it is not as open, in my view, and in the view of the Labour Party, as the Minister would claim.

We want public competition. We believe that the ultimate goal here should be the kind of hybrid system to which Deputy Ó Broin referred and which would be open to the public, whereby people could apply as citizens with an interest in the operation of a functioning, transparent, independent planning appeals board and experts would be involved, as they have been in the past. I repeat that I think that panel system is eminently capable of being reformed and will deliver reforms more quickly than the Minister claims his new system will.

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