John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

As I indicated, the acceptance of this amendment would result in a departure from standard practice. It is also standard practice for a Minister to say this. The difficulty with this proposal is that we would end up with a system such as that in place in the USA, under which people are interviewed in front of a committee about their suitability for a given position. While there are some admirers of that system, I am not one of them because the nomination of any person could become bogged down in political battling. This would be unfair because any person's political leanings might influence members of the board. It would lead to pitched battles. I cannot think of any reason this system should be useful for appointments to the National Tourism Development Authority and not apply to other State boards. If a procedure such as the one proposed was accepted, we would have to depart from standard practice and that departure would then become standard practice. While I understand the sentiments motivating the amendment, I regret that I am not able to accept it.