Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to come to the House today to set out the details of the Government's recently revised arrangements for ministerial appointments to State boards and to report on the progress we have made in implementing the new arrangements.
The revised model for State board appointments that was agreed last September is one of a number of measures that have been adopted or are being brought forward by the Government to create a new openness and transparency in the operation of public life. The overarching aim of these measures is as follows: to deliver greater accountability in the activities of all bodies and agencies charged with delivering services to the citizen; to promote greater efficiency and effectiveness in the public sector; to rebuild public trust in our system of Government; to encourage enhanced participation; and to strengthen our democracy.
In regard to appointments to State boards, Senators will be aware of the arrangements already introduced by the Government in 2011. Under these arrangements, Departments were required to invite expressions of interest from the public on their websites when filling board vacancies in the bodies under their aegis. The intention was that all members of the public could apply for appointment and be considered for such vacancies. A new website portal, stateboards.ie, was created by the Public Appointments Service to offer a single dedicated point of contact to all Government Departments as a support to the existing selection procedures. In addition, persons being proposed for appointment as chairpersons of State boards were required under these arrangements to make themselves available to the appropriate Oireachtas committee to discuss the approach they intended to take in their new role.
I am informed that approximately 2,500 expressions of interest were received under these arrangements and 220 appointments were made from the applications received. Nevertheless, while these new arrangements were successful in opening up the appointments process for State boards and increasing transparency, the Government felt that even more could be achieved, and during the course of last year I brought a further memorandum to Government on this matter.
In September 2014, the Government agreed to introduce a new system for State board appointments, building on the earlier innovations we introduced in 2011. This revised approach has the following three key principles at its core: the promotion of wider access to opportunities on State boards; the establishment of detailed and comprehensive criteria for these roles; and the introduction of transparent and rigorous assessment of candidates under these criteria. In broad terms, the Government's objective was to have more openness and transparency in a process that encourages the best candidates to apply.
The September 2014 decision required the Department to prepare guidelines on the new process to be agreed by Government. In preparing these guidelines, officials sought the views of all Departments. They also met a number interested parties, such as TASC and the National Women's Council, and engaged closely with the Public Appointments Service. The new guidelines, which were approved by the Government in November, set out clearly how the new appointments process for State boards is to work in practice. They contain requirements that apply to all State board appointments in terms of, for example, the calibre and quality of candidates and more open access to opportunities to serve on State boards, as well as broader public policy considerations relating to matters such as gender equality.

The guidelines make it clear that, in the end, it is the responsibility of the relevant accountable Minister to make appointments, and the Public Appointments Service will support Ministers in this function by seeking to ensure the Minister receives a sufficient list of suitable candidates from those who have submitted expressions of interest to the Public Appointments Service to enable the Minister to exercise his or her choice from the names submitted.

Where, notwithstanding the Public Appointments Service efforts, its process has not yielded the number of suitably qualified candidates required or if an exceptional alternative candidate is separately identified by the Minister, the guidelines are clear that it remains open to the Minister to ultimately appoint board members other than those that emerge from the Public Appointments Service process, provided that candidates separately identified by the Minister are assessed by the Public Appointments Service and meet the criteria laid down for the specific State board role.

I am confident that these guidelines will assist all Departments in engaging effectively with the Public Appointments Service to draw up clear specifications for board roles. Positions on State boards can then be openly advertised and expressions of interest sought from the widest possible pool of candidates, from which the Public Appointments Service can then assemble a shortlist for Ministers' consideration.

Although the guidelines have been in force only since last November, I understand that a number of appointment processes are already progressing within the new framework. These include, for example, appointments to the low pay commission and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, as well as the appointment of the chair of the new board of St. James's Hospital.

A number of clearly-defined exceptions to the scope of the guidelines have been allowed. These relate, most notably, to entities such as the North-South bodies, which are governed under the Belfast agreement. Arrangements have been also made to accommodate the statutory role that the Oireachtas has already given to NewERA in regard to certain State board appointments. Let me take this opportunity to clarify the NewERA arrangements.

The House will recall that NewERA is the entity established by the Government to manage the State's shareholder function in regard to a number of commercial semi-State companies, for example the ESB, Ervia, Coillte Teoranta, Bord na Móna, EirGrid and Irish Water. The programme for Government contains a commitment to give NewERA statutory responsibility to advise relevant Ministers on appointments to the boards of the NewERA companies. This commitment was fulfilled, in statute terms, in the National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Act, passed by the Oireachtas during the course of last year.

NewERA and the Public Appointments Service have discussed their respective roles and have worked out a protocol that can apply to appointments to the boards of the NewERA companies I set out. These discussions were very much informed by the parallel process of seeking to fill vacancies on the board of Ervia using the new guidelines. It was agreed that these appointments will be subject, as much as possible, to the arrangements set out in the published guidelines, with appropriate modifications to take account of NewERA's statutory role, as set out in law. I intend shortly to bring the protocol arrangements between the Public Appointments Service and NewERA to Government for agreement, and publish it thereafter.

In conclusion, I wish to assure the House that the changes to the process of ministerial appointments to State boards that I have set out today are more than merely cosmetic. They are clear and substantial progress on the Government's reform agenda. In future, while Ministers will retain the legal authority to make the actual appointments, such appointments will be drawn from a list of qualified candidates selected on foot of a transparent and fair process administered by the Public Appointments Service.

There will, of course, be issues thrown up by the new arrangements. We have travelled further in reforming this process in the past three years than was achieved in the previous 90 years. To ensure the success of the new process, the Government has decided that a review will be carried out and completed within 18 months of these new arrangements coming into force in order to assess whether the revised model has been truly effective.