David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 18, between lines 27 and 28, to insert the following:

“(9) Vacancies of the Commission membership will be filled within 3 months.”.

The Government's record on the filling of vacant positions on NCSSBs has not been great up to now. The Minister might remember in the run-up to Christmas last year a minor crisis unfolded as SIPO was unable to carry out its investigations as the Government had failed to fill two of the six positions on that board. It appears that the lesson the Government learned from that debacle was to work around the issue rather than address the problem itself. Essentially the Bill enables the board of the CCPC to carry out its business with half of its members not present indefinitely. I do not regard that as a satisfactory way to deal with it. We are calling for the positions to be filled within a time limit and we believe three months is a fair time limit.