Shane Ross (Independent)

Does he not know that the Government appoints cronies to the board of the regulator? Does he not know that? Does he not know why or on what criteria they are appointed? Does the Minister not know that one of the greatest abuses in this country is the cronyism to which he refused to respond, except to say that if the Government did that, it would be guilty of political interference? The hallmark of this Government on all semi-State boards is political interference. That is one of the problems and one of the reasons it should not be in office.

The Minister cannot tell me Fianna Fáil is not guilty of cronyism. It has consistently over the years appointed those whose loyalty is to Fianna Fáil and nothing else, whose primary loyalty is to a party and not to the nation. The Minister cannot tell me it has appointed people who are members of Fine Gael. Occasionally it throws in the odd token Fine Gael or Labour person. The Green Party has learned the tricks from Fianna Fáil and now its people are being appointed as a sop here, there and everywhere. The Minister cannot talk to me about political interference, the Government does it all the time.

When Fianna Fáil did get its hands on the banks, and the Minister did not answer this question, it put its own people in there, people who had few qualifications to be on the boards of banks but had great loyalty to Fianna Fáil.