Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I oppose the section. While I will not go over the issues again as we have covered this in great detail, I am disappointed. We have had very good Second Stage and Committee Stage debates but, as far as I can see, not one point has been taken. I am not sure of the point of having a Seanad if the Government simply listens to us and then brings the Bill to the Dáil. We might as well be clear on this. The Minister of State has said half a dozen times today that the changes will be made in the Dáil. I am not sure this is the purpose of the Seanad. Most Ministers come to the Seanad, listen and say they can take a particular point. I particularly refer to Senator O'Toole who made the point minutes ago that he felt that if this was presenting a problem, words could be introduced to deal with it.

I oppose the section because the main purpose of a board member is to make sure the health of a company is such that it will succeed, survive and thrive. The Bill seeks to make their main purpose that of policemen and detectives. I am concerned that the compliance statement states they are guilty of an offence individually, although I understand a company might be guilty of an offence as a corporate body.

Senator O'Toole asked: if the directors are not guilty, who is? The answer is that the company is guilty, although it may well be that its executives are found guilty of something. However, to expect that non-executive directors will accept non-executive directorships of companies when they could be guilty of an offence if it turns out that they have not been able to comply with everything in, for example, the area of food safety, the environment or otherwise, there will not be good and competent non-executive directors. If there are, it will be necessary to pay them a lot of money to insure them against anything going wrong.

The Minister of State must think this through again and I am sorry he has not done so today. I get the impression from what he said several times that he is not planning to take amendments on Report Stage. That is no compliment to the Seanad after such a good debate on Second Stage and today. I hope he will reconsider between now and tomorrow. While there are certainly some amendments which will benefit from consideration over the summer before the Bill reaches the Dáil, I would be disappointed if some of the points made today were not considered in time for Report Stage tomorrow.