Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I have a number of concerns about it. They may all be completely fine and not warranted, but there is no information on the Re-Turn website anywhere about the organisation, how it is structured, who the board of directors are or any of that information. When the Minister of State talks about transparency, it is not there at the moment. He talks about the highest standards of corporate governance. When you look at the board - I have seen a list of names online of people who are on the board but I do not know if this is correct - it would appear there are 11 people on the board. Seven of them are large producers, such as Coca-Cola, Diageo and Heineken. It reads more like a stakeholder group than a board of directors.

It is very unusual to have people on a board who could be deemed to be conflicted because of their originating company. I would be interested to know why those people are on the board and it is not based on skills, which is usually how a board is formed. You look for someone who has accounting, communication and marketing skills, not people who are stakeholders.

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