Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I actually do not believe it is the right approach. There are people in these Houses who are directors of fairly important companies who have decisions to make in that regard and who make a contribution to those companies. I believe that if any Member who is a public representative in any capacity has the expertise, then this blanket exclusion of people in any sort of representative role is fundamentally wrong. As I stated earlier, it does not apply to public servants. One can go through the list of companies to establish how many public servants, particularly Secretaries General, are on boards of companies that would be subject in some sense to Departments and in fact to the particular Department of the Secretary General in question. I do not believe the Minister's issue in respect of conflict stands up in that regard. However, I take it the Minister and I disagree on this point and I will oppose the section.