David Norris (Independent)

I will address another issue, which I am sure my colleague, Senator Henry, will also look at, and which must be put on the record of the House. It concerns the board of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and the problems in regard to it, about which we had many debates in the House. Let us look at what happened in terms of political appointees in that case. It was exposed in a series of articles, most notably by Fintan O'Toole, within the past week. A learned and excellent professor whom I will not name but who, unusually in these circumstances, was a woman, was appointed head of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service Board. In this most critical and sensitive area she rapidly came up against the difficulty of appointments of a political nature by the Government. She contacted the Minister and pointed out the serious skills deficiencies in the board which were not being made up by those who were being appointed politically. She identified gaps in skills and competencies and she made attempts to meet the Minister to discuss the matter. A couple of meetings were arranged but were cancelled at the last minute. She never got to meet him. I quote from one of the letters written by her to the Minister. It states:

We were informed of the appointments you made which gave the board a competency profile as follows: seven medical consultants; one employee of your Department; one building society marketing executive; one retired hotelier; one university registrar; one hospital manager. You will observe that, inter alia, we have no audit, finance, HR, legal, pensions, transfusion medicine, pharmaceutical grade manufacturing, blood user or strategy expertise. I am concerned at these gaps.

They were never made up. We dealt with the consequences of the incompetence of that board in the House and its dereliction of duty. What did we then do? We stuffed it with all these dummies. That is a serious thing to have done. It is unconscionable that this should happen. Senator Ross is 100% right in terms of the motion he tabled.

I wish to refer to a Member of the House, a good friend of mine and somebody whose career I respect, Senator O'Rourke. The public perception, as exemplified in a newspaper article, was that a flurry of appointments was made by her prior to her leaving the Department. It is not just the Leader, it is part of the system. I would prefer if her reputation was protected from it, but let us face the truth.