Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I shall deal with common questions first and then I shall go through them in order.

Senators Humphreys, O'Mahony, Boyhan and others have asked me about various State boards, in particular the Road Safety Authority, the Irish Sports Council, Iarnród Éireann and others. There are at least 40 vacancies in boards under the remit of my Department. I have made reappointments, as referred to by Senator Boyhan, in the case of the RSA and in other boards where they are important such as, for example, in situations where someone is needed on an audit committee or somewhere like that. I shall continue making such appointments.On State boards such as the Road Safety Authority and Irish Sports Council, I do not find the Public Appointments Service, PAS, system, as it currently operates, satisfactory. That is the reason the appointments in question have not been made. I will give a couple of examples which I also referred to at a committee meeting. While it is fashionable to blame one's predecessor for everything, some of these vacancies were left by my predecessor. I refer specifically to vacancies in the RSA, the Irish Sports Council and CIE. I will explain how this was done to help Senators understand the reason I have not filled the relevant vacancies.

The relevant Department gives the Public Appointments Service a set a criteria for appointments to State boards. The PAS meets and a committee is established consisting primarily of departmental officials. This committee collects all the curricula vitae submitted in response to the position being advertised on the publicjobs.iewebsite. It then selects from this group of applicants those individuals whose qualifications meet the criteria set down and submits these names to the Minister.

In the cases I have come across, not a single interview has been done. Criteria were set out in the cases of the RSA and Irish Sports Council and in the latter case, they were so broad that virtually anyone in the country with an interest in sport would have qualified for the position. The committee assesses the curricula vitae it receives for perhaps one day before submitting the names to the Minister. Senator O'Mahony should forgive me if any of the figures I provide are wrong but in the case of the Irish Sports Council, there were two vacancies to be filled, the PAS committee submitted 34 names to the Minister and no interviews were conducted. That is not a proper selection process. This Irish Sports Council case was one of those I inherited. As Minister, having looked through 34 names, how in the name of God am I meant to make a selection unless I interview all of the candidates, which I clearly cannot do? The system is inadequate.

In the case of the RSA, to which the Senator referred, 21 names were submitted to the Minister for three vacancies. The same principle applies. I have made inquiries about this and as far as I know, not a single interview was held in that case. In all cases in which the PAS makes selections for my Department - I believe this is also true of other Departments - the committee refuses to rank candidates and sends the applications to the Minister in paper format only. I am not sure if the qualifications cited by candidates are verified before the Minister makes a choice. The PAS replaced a system that may have been worse and basically involved the Minister appointing people without any form of siphoning or selection process. It is absolutely wrong that I should take 34 names and select so-and-so and so-and-so on the basis of their curricula vitae. There must be a more satisfactory way of doing these things and I am trying to devise one. The reason is I realise there is a necessity in the case of semi-State and State agencies to have a variety of people with a variety of qualifications.

Incidentally, I do not believe that big boards make better boards. The Road Safety Authority sought to increase the size of its board such that it would be larger than the board of AIB. I do not see the point of a State agency having more people on its board than are on the board of one of the largest companies in the country.

We must not assume that boards need to have experts or persons with qualifications in every single aspect of the role of the company or agency in question in order that it can shadow executives. That is the purpose of executives. The board needs people with other qualifications as well, which is the reason the vacancies to which the Senator refers have not been filled.

I have not left any agency or body with an inquorate board at any stage. I have made reappointments to boards when recommendations have been made to keep them quorate. However, there must be a better and more efficient way of doing this, one which does not result in a very cursory system of appointments.

I will start by responding to Senator Ned O'Sullivan.