Larry Butler (Fianna Fail)

I support this important motion. It is important that people who serve on public boards are quality appointees. We must ensure members of public and State boards have knowledge of what they are doing on those boards. In the past, Fine Gael and the Labour Party put their own colleagues and supporters on boards. I have seen the appointments down through the years. I doubt that they are in a position to lecture us about how we select people for appointment to those boards, although I have a different view of how selection should take place.

I believe interviews should take place in a committee of this House before board members appointed to State boards take up their positions. I am also of the view that county councillors are best suited for appointment, provided they have the relevant knowledge for the board to which they are appointed. They are accountable, as they are elected every five years. That is more than one can say for the people currently serving on these boards. Some councillors are serving on the boards and they are doing so with great distinction.

I support a review of the board system that currently exists. There are now 1,000 quangos and it is the time to review what they do and what they are worth to the country. There are three boards in the tourism sector. Let us be honest about this. There is no need for three boards for tourism. One is sufficient. This is a small country and we could concentrate more on the issue if there was one board. Even the members of the different boards say the same. I agree with the motion. It is time to review the entire system of State boards.

It is also important to examine the type of professions that are needed on the boards. That is not being done. People without the relevant knowledge are being appointed to boards. I have seen instances where people have been appointed to boards even though they do not have any knowledge of what the board or company has been set up to do. We have seen this with the health boards, where there are people on them who have no knowledge of the health system. I have eight years' experience and I was not even considered for appointment to the Health Service Executive. Despite this, people with no experience were appointed. These are the questions that must be answered.

If we do not have experienced people on the boards, how can we expect them to function properly? Some of them do not. I am aware of people on the board of the health service who do not even turn up for meetings. They might turn up for two or three meetings a year but not for monthly meetings. Attendance by a member of a board is vital. Otherwise, the person obviously is not very interested and is only there for the €22,000 or so they get for being on the HSE board. Some of them do not consider it worth their while turning up for board meetings. That must be questioned. Attendance must be examined. I agree there should be freedom of information in this regard. These people should be exposed.

I support the motion. It is important we examine the system we have and how people are appointed. There should be a committee of this House to interview the people who are appointed to these boards. That would be a more transparent way of doing business. Let us forget about the political system. We would get far better people for appointment if this House conducted the interview. There is no point in talking about the past but there was cronyism and the appointment of party members. That is happening now to a lesser extent. If good people are needed on a board, we should get them. They are the people with the expertise to run the body. They will be good for what we need them to do. If we do not have professionalism on the boards, we will not get the quality people we require.