Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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There are three vacancies on the board of the National Museum of Ireland, two of which are for ordinary members of the board and one of which is for the staff nomination to the board. Section 19(1) of the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997 provides that "the Board of the Museum shall consist of a chairperson and not less than 13 or more than 15 ordinary members who shall be appointed to be members of the Board of the Museum by the Minister". Under the procedures put in place to appoint members of State boards, the process of filling two of the current vacancies on the board of the museum will be run by the Public Appointments Service. An assessment panel will be convened to consider and assess the expressions of interest received. A shortlist of suitable candidates will then be prepared to be sent forward for my consideration. Officials in the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht are working with the National Museum of Ireland and the Public Appointments Service to prepare the appropriate call for expressions of interest to serve on the board. It is expected that this will be finalised shortly and will then be advertised on www.stateboards.ie.

The process for appointing the staff member to the board is set out in section 19(6) of the 1997 Act, which provides that the person in question "shall be selected by the Minister from a panel of not less than 4 persons (of whom not less than 2 shall be women and not less than 2 shall be men) [and whose names shall] be submitted to him or her by the members of staff" of the museum. There was an insufficient number of staff nominations from the museum following the initial call for nominations. The Department has written to the museum to ask for additional nominations, following which I will make a staff appointment to the board in accordance with section 19(6) of the 1997 Act. The final form was sent for ministerial approval in recent days so that the vacancies can be advertised by the Public Appointments Service. There was a particular focus on the skill sets to be included on the form. As I have said, there are two vacancies for ordinary members of the board and there is one vacancy for the staff nomination to the board.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I should have mentioned in my initial response that earlier today, I signed the ministerial approval for the vacancies to go to advertisement. I will give an overview of the process. The vacancies on the board arose in January. A number of legal and interpretation issues arose as the Department was preparing to advertise the vacancies. The process of preparing to make new appointments to State boards requires a reasonable degree of consideration by the boards of State bodies, the Department and the Public Appointments Service. This can take some time. A number of legal and technical issues regarding the process arose in this case but have now been ironed out. The appointments are now ready to be advertised and this should happen shortly. As I said, there are two vacancies for ordinary members of the board of the museum. The Department wrote to the acting director in January and sent a reminder in February.

We requested legal advice in March. We sent another reminder in April. Suffice to say it is now all in situand we should hopefully have those appointments made in a matter of weeks.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I signed the ministerial approval earlier today-----

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I cannot give the Deputy a definitive timeline as to when PAS will come back to me with a shortlist process but I imagine it will be a matter of weeks rather than months. It is important that we get these appointments made as soon as possible. As I mentioned in my first response, the museum did not give us four names. We were only given three, which was not sufficient. Under section 19 of the Act there is a requirement for four nominees to be forwarded to the Minister for consideration. There was formal legal advice received on 22 May stating that it would be prudent for the Department to consider writing to the National Museum of Ireland stating that the Minister requires a panel of four pursuant to section 19 of the Act and to ask the museum to nominate a further nominee, at least one other female, to be considered for appointment. A letter was issued to the director seeking an additional nomination on 23 May 2018. We sent a reminder to the National Museum of Ireland in respect of this matter and the final form was sent to me and was signed today. The issue was resolved. The revised form was sent back on 4 May. That is where we are at the moment and hopefully we will have this sorted out in the next few weeks.