Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

While I do not normally disagree with the Minister and normally follow his logic, that is totally illogical. Effectively, the Minister is stating that because the accounts of the company will come before the local authority, members somehow should not be directors of the board. It is the same situation with shareholders, in that a company might have many shareholders some of whom may well be directors of the company, but the accounts will come before the shareholders at an annual general meeting. It is absolutely no different and that is why I do not perceive the logic of what the Minister is doing.

I will state directly to the Minister what I think it is. While it probably is not the Minister's doing, I have found previously, even when Fianna Fáil was in government, that there is a prejudice within Departments against having local authority members participate on boards of any companies. I merely state that if a member of a council has the qualifications that would make him or her an eminently qualified director of that company, wherein he or she would be in a good position to make a positive contribution to the development of the company and fulfil his or her fiduciary and other responsibilities as a director, there is no reason for debarring that councillor simply because he or she is a member of a local authority. That ideology has flowed into this legislation, as it does across Departments in other legislation. I also have witnessed this happen in respect of other legislation. However, how many times do companies that are subject to a Department have the Secretary General of that Department as a director? While the argument the Minister has made to me about debarring the local authority members is never made, this is fairly common practice. I believe that in this provision, individuals are being discriminated against simply because they are local authority members. I have never agreed with that and do not believe it is good enough.

However, what exposes the situation is the comparison between this scenario and council members having a direct say in the operation of a port. I presume that even though the operation of that port will continue as part of the assets of a local authority, the port will operate as an unregistered company wherein the accounts will be ring-fenced. I am sure the revenues coming in will not be bumped into the local authority and the expenditure will not be bundled into some other side of the local authority. Surely there will be a separate account to ascertain how that particular operation is performing and members will have a direct input into that operation. However, if the Minister chooses to secure not the assets but the shares, then they are not allowed to have any say in the operation itself. These two things simply do not sit together logically. That is all.