Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his comments. I have just pulled up the handbook to check a particular point. If that overreach by an official in relation to the election of the chair had not happened we would not be in the position of saying the task force cannot operate at all. Task forces should be free to appoint their chair without interference by the Department, provided the chair:

... is not directly connected with any of the projects being funded by the Task Force. ... [and there is] complete transparency in the arrangements put in place by [the drugs task forces] DTFs for the selection process and appointment of Chairs.

That is from the Local and Regional Drugs Task Forces handbook. There was nothing in the appointment of the chair that did not repeat what was required by that handbook. I do not think we can keep saying: "governance and handbooks". The Department should come out very strongly and say there was not a governance issue. If this is what the Department is seeing as a governance issue, that is, that there was something wrong with the appointment of the chair, then that is very different from saying the word "governance" out there because everyone thinks the worst. People think somebody has done something fraudulent or that there has been a misappropriation of funds or that somebody has been dishonest. The onus is now on the Department to clarify what it means when it said it was governance issues that led it to over-reaching into this. The Department gave itself a power it did not have to suspend the task force and that is not okay. If the Department can take ownership of what it did wrong in the process maybe people will be able to move closer to fixing the issue.