Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words on the amendment tabled by Senator McDowell. I must say it has been very interesting to listen to him for the last number of minutes. I will vote for the Government, of course, whatever the Government decision is. I might be voting against my beliefs but I will vote with the Government. At the same time, as I have said, it has been very interesting to listen to Senator McDowell. It would seem very funny to have a corporate body with nine members, one of whom has no vote and where the other eight can have a stalemate with no way to resolve it. I was a local authority member for many years. We made various appointments to various boards. In Fine Gael, we had a system whereby a tie was decided by choosing whoever received the most second preferences. I do not know whether there is any such provision in this case or whether the eight people have just a single vote. How will they decide what to do in the event of a tie?It seems to me that common sense has gone out the window. That point has been well illustrated by Senator McDowell. That observation does not relate only to this commission. In the public service and Civil Service as a whole, there are questions about how people are appointed through the Public Appointments Service. I spoke to a lady in the past week who told me that for preselection, a candidate fills out a form and does an interview online. The application is then fed into a computer with algorithms on it. That is how preselection is done now. It is done with computers. It does not matter how highly educated a person is or how well that person fits the available job. The candidate's fate lies with the computer. As we all know, computers are only as good as the information fed into them and the criteria that are established. When a candidate appeals after a failed application, the decision on the appeal is vague and the candidate is not provided any great detail about what emphasis was put into the computer. I know a number of people who have applied through the Public Appointments Service. They are highly educated and have a lot of experience. In my view, they would be way ahead of some of the people who were preselected but the computer let them down for various reasons. Perhaps the person concerned had a stammer or something else. I do not know what the reason was but the computer let those people down.

Over the years, I have seen technical college teachers being appointed by boards. People were giving out that there was favouritism, political influence and all those sorts of things. However, in the 30 years I have been a Senator, only once was a committee put in place to get rid of a judge. That case had nothing to do with his performance as a judge. Something else was at issue. I have not seen many bad teachers who were selected by boards. People are always giving out about various things but it is hard to get away from the knowledge that people have built up through sitting on interview boards. That is how we should approach public appointments. The elected Government of the day should not shirk the responsibility to appoint people to the top posts in the country. The Government should take the consequences that come with the people it selects or elects to those jobs. That is what the Government is there for. It is there to make those decisions. This is a cop-out. I do not agree with it even though I will be voting for it because it is a Government Bill. I believe the Government of the day should make the decisions about who takes the top jobs in this country and that it should live with the consequences for the term it is in government. The people will then deal with that Government after four or five years or whatever its term is. Senator McDowell has made some great points and it was interesting to listen to him speak about this Bill. The Minister of State will probably have an answer to my question about what happens when a stalemate arises. There is no doubt but that it will happen one day.