Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I will not be able to say all I wished. I hoped to ask questions also about the new commercial semi-State agency to be set up, namely, the national assets management agency. Again, questions must be asked about the recruitment of the individuals who will fulfil the important roles of chair or chief executive officer and members on the board of that institution. It is a matter of urgency that we have a system of public scrutiny of appointments to that new agency in terms of trying to ensure greater public confidence and greater confidence in the international markets about how we regulate our financial system. We must ensure that appointments are made that are effective and are seen to be such.

I will conclude with a brief reference to the Equality Authority. We had an exemplary public servant in the person of Niall Crowley who fulfilled his role with great efficiency and effectiveness. He gained an international reputation in promoting equality and ensuring that the Equality Authority was an active and effective body. What happened to him? As we are all aware – references have been made to this in the debate – he was forced to resign in December due to the swingeing cuts of 43% imposed on the Equality Authority, in addition to various other measures that made his work impossible.

Questions must be asked about cases where a person is effective in his or her role as chief executive officer of a State body and is doing the job in a professional and expert way and if he or she is seen by the Government to be too challenging of the State and therefore singled out by it for punishment. We must remember that the Equality Authority supported a number of cases taken against Civil Service entities and public bodies. The contrast between the principled resignation of Niall Crowley last year and the failures to resign of various people in high office in the financial regulatory system until they were often pushed is notable when we are debating the issue of public appointments and the scrutiny thereof. We need to see action on this as a matter of urgency. It is simply not good enough to suggest, as the ostriches on the other side have done, that we can simply depend on an ongoing review. We need more than ideas and there must be action by way of implementing measures to ensure greater scrutiny of public appointments.