Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish Romania and all Romanians a happy national day also. I welcome the ambassadors who were with us earlier.

I have raised inland fisheries matters on numerous occasions. I am grateful for the reply I received this morning from the Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, informing me that an investigation will take place on matters under the Department’s protected disclosures policy. The contents of the emails, together with the information and attachments I have provided, will be furnished to the investigator. I welcome that because I have raised these matters on numerous occasions, as have colleagues in this House and the other Chamber from the locality.

Quite extraordinarily, there was a great deal of very important material in the report that was published by Conleth Bradley. In sections 87 and 88 of the report, Mr. Bradley makes recommendations on how communications to the board should be considered and what should or should not be put before members of the board. Mr. Bradley recommends that all communications from the Department’s stakeholders or third parties should be forwarded to the CEO and board secretary for vetting, and that they and they alone should decide what should be brought to the attention of board members. The CEO is hired by the board and works for it to implement board decisions. The chair runs the board and the CEO manages the day-to-day functions of the organisation. If the recommendations are accepted, they will amount to sort of a coup or takeover of the board by its employee, the CEO. Any future CEO could shield himself or herself from any adverse communications from external parties and essentially censor all incoming external communications. It seems that the chair’s role would be reduced to conducting board meetings and dealing with the agenda devised by the CEO and the board’s secretary. If this type of standing order is adopted by Inland Fisheries Ireland, it will amount to a suspension of the independence of the chair and the board, and the handing of the keys to the board’s employee and agent, the CEO. The board must be allowed to exercise its oversight functions without hindrance. I call again for a debate on matters in respect of Inland Fisheries Ireland and angling in general in this country. Given the work programme we have ahead of us now, I expect that this debate will not happen until the new year.