Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State's approach and I am happy to go along with it. I appreciate his thoughtful response. My first working involvement in politics was as a member of the road safety committee of Dublin County Council. I was wearing an educational hat. It was my introduction to sitting in a room and working with politicians. I was a young teacher at the time. I was impressed by their commitment and interest. That was 25 to 30 years ago and they were discussing new ideas such as cycle lanes and all sorts of other developments that have come into being since then.

I accept the Minister of State's point about Members of the Oireachtas. I do not agree with him on it but I am prepared to let it pass. I will be happy if he deals with the other issue. All the members of the board are appointed by the Minister. This is a particular type of board but there are other boards to which the Minister appoints two people and other people are on the board by virtue either of their office or of being nominated by a body. It might be inappropriate to allow the ministerial nominees to be Members of the Oireachtas. That would be asking for trouble. However, what if a Member were put forward by another body by virtue of some other qualification, for example, if a person was nominated to the road safety authority by the medical profession and that person happened to be a Member of the Houses of the Oireachtas? That is the type of occurrence we should examine.

I accept that we do not want to invite a situation where boards are filled with ministerial appointees who happen to be Members of the Houses. That was never the argument. We are arguing that Members might become members of a board by virtue of wearing another hat, being from another place or having an expertise. It is the denial of expertise to the board because a member is an elected representative that is unacceptable. I appreciate the Minister of State's comments.