Shane Ross (Independent)

Richard Burke was a political stunt, as the Minister of State knows very well. That was the worst possible example. It was a political stunt. Richard Burke was chosen because he was involved in a by-election situation. He was appointed to create a by-election. He was the worst and most insidious choice in that way and was chosen for the worst motives.

Let us not take Richard Burke but let us look at the Minister of State's defence. I do not relish the Minister of State welcoming the Bill and then saying there are a few details in it, however, with which he does not agree. This Bill is open to amendment. If he agrees with the principles, as he seems to with much of it, and if Senators Boyle and de Búrca also agree with the principles, let us vote it through. Then let us accept the Minister of State's amendments, but he is not genuine about this at all. He does not want any change whatsoever. He has hidden behind all manner of OECD detail, most of which I do not understand. He says the Cabinet has now set up steering committees and groups to consider this. He also said, and Senator Norris touched on this, that we need to take a hard look at the semi-State system which has stood Fianna Fáil so well for so long. People have had a good hard look at this for a long time and it stinks. It does not work. It works for Fianna Fáil but not for anyone else. That is why it is so important to look at this.

We are not looking for very much. We are just looking for these decisions not to be made behind closed doors by a single Minister telling nobody why or how he or she makes them because we know many of them are made for political reasons. We are looking for the criteria to be made public and for the individuals to be subject to some sort of public scrutiny. That is all. Senator Boyle appeared before us with a halfway house measure, but this is not good enough. As I understand it, what is being proposed in the programme for Government is that an independent panel will be set up, half of which will comprise political hacks and the other half independent people from whom the Minister will have recommendations to be chosen as well. That is not much of an improvement, just a gesture. We should be looking for the Minister to go the whole hog on the principle of transparency and accountability.

In making a final plea, I acknowledge there have been some really fine appointments. The appointment of Patrick Honohan as Governor of the Central Bank, for instance, was an extremely fine decision and it was made just recently. I see no reason that appointment should not have come up for discussion at an Oireachtas joint committee. It would have been welcome. He is a man who would have shone and would have raised the status of the office if he had come before a joint committee and been quizzed in public because he would have shown his abilities and that he was on top of the subject. It is a great regret that people of that calibre who are appointed are not subject to this sort of scrutiny, which would increase confidence in the system rather than diminish those people in the eyes of the public who see them as being appointed behind closed doors.

A very delicate issue has not been mentioned in this debate. Judges are political appointees. Judges are appointed by politicians. There is absolutely no point in us pretending that prior to their appointment somehow they are above politics. Maybe afterwards they can lay some claim to it. It is common gossip down in the Law Library that it is the turn of a particular person this time because of his or her political colour. It is deeply regrettable that that should be material or considered material by anybody. However, there is no doubt that people appointed to the Judiciary, given that they are political appointments, must have political leanings in order to get appointed or be considered for appointment. That matter could also come under the scope of the Bill.

Senator Boyle in a good humoured speech which acknowledged the merits of what we were proposing revealed something that I did not know. This is important. He said proudly that when the Green Party was offered a seat on a State board, it went through an internal process. In that way it decided who was appointed to which boards. I did not know the Green Party was offered places on State boards. I suspected it, but I did not realise that someone in the Government said to the Green Party: "This time it's your turn, lads; we take the next five or 15, this time it's yours." I did not realise it was as nakedly political as that and that someone in the Government would say to the Green Party: "This is your one, appoint whom you like, it's the Green Party choice; the next one is ours." That is so political and is open to abuse. It is not necessarily corrupt but it is certainly a malpractice that should be stopped.