Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I support the group of amendments. We encounter this issue regularly in this House. I have spoken to many Ministers on this issue who said they never noticed it until they came into this House. Nobody takes any notice of it in the Dáil. It is most irritating. It is demeaning of public representatives. In effect it says we cannot trust them. On certain occasions it would be inappropriate to have Members of the Oireachtas on a board answerable directly to the Oireachtas for particular areas. We accept that, but this is not the point.

I have discussed this issue many times with Senator Paddy Burke and with Senator Wilson and have chased the matter up on three occasions. What is infuriating is that this did not arise at the suggestion of a Minister, a Department head or an Accounting Officer. It is inserted by the draftsperson, who inserts it each time as a matter of rote.

When I hear the same answer given every time this question is raised, I cannot believe it. It becomes literally incredible. If on this occasion or in this legislation there is a specific reason whereby it would be entirely wrong to have a member of a local authority involved, we would have to listen to the argument made by the Minister of State. As an elected Member of the Oireachtas, does the Minister of State find this demeaning? It suggests we cannot be trusted, that we are "only politicians".

We need to be more accountable in all sorts of ways and give ourselves benchmarks for ethical standards, and we do that as well as we can. We should not be debarred from holding office above any other group in the country. There might have been a case for this when this was a centrally run country, when there was no other group other than a Department of State, but there are now numerous checks and balances. It is all wrong.

I checked recently why certain people were not considered for membership of the Garda reserve. I thought initially there was no sense in debarring auctioneers and so on, and that it was ridiculous, yet realised there was a good reason for debarring certain people, because auctioneers and publicans and so on have to apply to the court, and local gardaí have to say whether those people are entitled to have their licences renewed, and so on, so clearly a conflict of interest could occur. One might disagree with that, but it is a logical position to take. I can understand it and must accept the political view, though it seems a little unlikely. However, if one wants to be cleaner than clean it makes sense. I have tried to apply that kind of test when this issue arose on recent occasions in this House, and it does not apply.

On three occasions this has been conceded in this House by Ministers. It was conceded by the former Minister of State, Deputy Jacob, and was conceded twice by the current Tánaiste in legislation in this House. She removed that offensive item as it related to various different boards. On those occasions, an argument was made and the matter was discussed.

This is not a cross-party issue or a matter of great political moment. It is a matter on which all elected politicians in the Houses can take a common view. I ask the Minister of State to accept these arguments, or at least return to the issue with a view to making changes.