How will the Minister deal with health board members? The Minister for Health and Children appoints a number of persons to health boards. Can they still be Members of the Oireachtas? The Bill is an attack on local authority members. Almost every Bill establishing a State or semi-State body includes a provision precluding local authority members from membership of the board of the body in question. The Bill also precludes local authority members once they have been elected to the Oireachtas. What is so wrong with being a local authority member? When the Taoiseach appoints his 11 nominees to the Seanad, do the people concerned have to give up their jobs in order to be Members of the Seanad? I do not know of anyone who has given up a job to be a Member of Seanad Éireann. Very few did so. Why should a local authority member have to give up his or her job? As membership of a local authority is a part-time job, why should we have to give it up when elected to the Oireachtas?