Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

The chairperson of the consultative group will have to be as skilled as the chief executive of the agency but in a different way. A person will be sought who can organise a listening process to take on all the views of the various stakeholders covered by the legislation and assimilate them. It is provided in the legislation that the chief executive of the agency could decide to be the chairperson of the consultative group, thereby making a direct link between the agency and the group, or he or she could appoint somebody else. The last thing I want is a vested interest emerging from the process who may then only carry back what he or she wants to hear as opposed to what was said. Somebody is needed who can take an overview, particularly in a consultation process as broad as this.