Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 9, line 15, to delete ?Subject to subsection (4),?.

The amendment proposes that subsection (4) should not apply to the appointment of the first director general. Obviously, my party disagrees with this and believes that under no circumstances should it apply to the first director general. Indeed, to my knowledge, the first director general will be a person who was hand-picked for the particular role anyway, without going through a recruitment process. I again make crystal clear this is not to impugn the qualifications or abilities of the person in question. However, regardless of how good the Minister knows that person to be or how good on paper the credentials may appear, a recruitment process is laid down in the Statute Book that must be followed but it is not. Consequently, he already has been in place as the Minister's interim figure and from henceforth, one will have this temporary little arrangement, which will last for up to three years or for God knows how long thereafter, depending presumably on who is in government. This again weakens what the legislation is trying to achieve. The Minister could usefully have considered this issue in more detail. Is the issue that there were cost implications arising from a recruitment process? Is this the reason there has been a reluctance to take the transparent route and put it out to tender? Alternatively, is there a fear that someone better might be found than currently is in place? Certainly, there appear to be 400,000 people looking for jobs in the present market and I am sure we did not simply happen to have the five or six directors already on the books. This provision weakens the Bill and I intend to press this amendment