Shane Ross (Independent)

He has a key role to play, particularly in building up confidence in business in Ireland. It would be highly serious, particularly for multinationals, for the wrong message to go out. The wrong message would be that Ireland did not take corporate governance seriously and was in some way lax in its international obligations in this regard. This issue could be debated usefully on an all-party basis. There would not be any disputes in this respect.

However, there will be disputes regarding the next subject I wish to raise. I thank Senator Bannon for raising the subject of appointments to semi-State bodies. I have a long memory and recall the former Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, indulging himself in an orgy of appointments in these Houses just before leaving office in 1977, which caused much comment at the time. Senator Bannon is welcome to sign the Independent Members' motions Nos. 8 and 9 of No. 21 in this regard.

All Members know that semi-State appointments constitute spoils of war that are distributed by whoever is in Government. This is an abuse and is carried out ruthlessly and not only by Fianna Fáil. That party does more of it because it is in power more often. However, Fine Gael in power also does it ruthlessly, by removing some highly able people from office and replacing them with political hacks. It has been done in an even more extreme manner by the Labour Party, whose members disgraced themselves in 1992 when they came to power. A mature debate could be held both on semi-State appointments and appointments to the Judiciary.

Every time I say there is a political input to appointments to the Judiciary, I am greeted by howls of protest, which is ridiculous because every Member knows that it is true. The most intelligent comment on the Order of Business was Senator Minihan's heckle of Senator Bannon regarding prison visiting committees, which is not a great reflection on the rest of us. He stated at least his party did not appoint people to the prison visiting committees in areas where the appointees were not living. Such appointments are an unspoken luxury, given as a party political reward so that, for example, people from Donegal can be appointed to visit prisons in Dublin and people from Dublin can visit prisons in Donegal.