Rónán Mullen (Independent)

He is clearly so overworked that he failed to put in inverted commas, at least, to ease our passage through the speech.

In welcoming the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, to the House, it is not controversial to state that the patronage and the abuse of appointment to public office has on occasions been the curse of our political system. I commend Senator Ross on bringing forward the Bill. As he stated, he did not draft it but he is absolutely correct in bringing it forward for consideration by the House today.

Before dealing with the substantive areas of the Bill, I want to cast an eye over the nature of the bodies addressed in the Bill. In any democracy elements of government are delegated to panels of experts to allow close scrutiny of the matters in question by people who are able and interested but not weighed down with the demands of office of state. However, since the early days of this State the cynical among us have been able to predict that these appointments would be made on occasion for venal rather than altruistic reasons, and too often people have been proven correct.

I was going out the door of my office when I heard Senator White, I think, - I am open to correction - generously acknowledge or at least assume for the sake of argument that it was not just a Fianna Fáil problem. It was not only generous but wise of him to do so because there is no political party that has been above making rather grubby appointments on occasion.

I recall the famous Battle of Baltinglass. I was surprised the Minister did not mention this cause célèbre back in 1950, a dispute caused by the action of the then Labour Party TD for Wicklow who had become Minister for Post and Telegraphs in the inter-party Government. Ignoring the rights of the incumbent family, the Cookes, as the House will be aware, he appointed one of this own supporters, Michael Farrell, as postmaster of the sub-post office in the village of Baltinglass, and the family protested.

There is an interesting parallel with what we are discussing. The family protested and many politicians were appalled by such marked jobbery, but after Labour's coalition partners, Clann na Poblachta, whose election plans had included opposition to corruption, failed to demand justice from the Minister, it was the people of Baltinglass who took up the cudgels in the battle. They arranged to boycott the general store that Farrell also owned in the village and, in the following year, Farrell resigned his position as postmaster. Indeed, there was an anonymous contemporary ballad describing the battle that went as follows:

There were bremagums and stem-guns and whippet tanks galore,

As the battle raged up and down from pub to gen'ral store.

As I stated, it seems there is no party in this State above criticism on this issue.

The modern example of appointing members to boards, including semi-State companies and prison visiting committees, whose members are often resident many miles from the meeting place of these committees, has resulted in considerable travel expenses in addition to the stipend payable. Of course, this considerable financial cost to the public purse has compounded the damage done to the public good by keeping good persons off these boards in favour of, on occasions, less able but better connected persons.

Of course, I am speaking not about every appointment but about the general malaise. Obviously, we must consider the good work done by many post holders who have been sincere in their dedication and faithful to their task.

The Bill is impressive. On the central tenet of the Bill, that there would be scrutiny or that decisions on the appointments made would be taken away from the Executive, at least to a partial extent, some years ago we were faced with controversy that led to the creation of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, JAAB, a development that was intended to remove the problem of political considerations impinging on appointments to the Bench. While the creation of the JAAB was well-meaning, it is fair to say that many consider that the political element remains to an undesirable degree. This Bill in a sense addresses this by making the power of appointment lie with an Oireachtas joint committee rather than having an independent body make a non-binding recommendation to Cabinet, as is the case with the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, although as I stated, I note the provisions on the Minister's ultimate responsibility.

I welcome in particular the provisions set out in section 13 and the focus in section 12 on the appointment plans. I would have liked to voice a caution about accountability. The FÁS scandal has shown the propensity of Government to wash its hands of anything that can safely be blamed on the board of an autonomous organisation. It might be appropriate to amend section 5 to give some mechanism to the Minister's ultimate responsibility by creating a practical element, perhaps borrowed from corporate governance theory, that the chairs of these committees would be specifically required to report to the relevant Minister on the functioning of the board. Gabhaim leithscéal le mo comhleacaí. Gabhaim buíochas as ucht an deis labhartha.