Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I agree with the spirit of the amendment. There is no way I would appoint a board that was not representative or did not include high calibre people, particularly from the voluntary and community sector. It would not enter my mind not to appoint the number of representatives from the voluntary and community sector specified in the amendment. Normally, in appointing a board one seeks competent, capable people, who are not deeply involved in the corporate politics of the sector in question. In travelling to various events around the country I seem to see the same people at all of them, but they may not be the people delivering most on the ground.

I accept there is a dilemma in this regard. I remember, for example, being told to set up interview boards and so on when I was dealing with the issue of the Coimisinéir Teanga. The problem I had with this approach was that the persons I considered most appropriate for the position may not have applied for it, whereas I was confident they would apply if I approached them and told him I considered them eminently suitable. I get things right and wrong but in the case of the Coimisinéir Teanga most people have said I picked well——