Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 510: To ask the Minister for Defence if he will provide a breakdown of the number of appointments that have been made to State boards by him since he came to office, including the names of the appointees and the boards they have been appointed to; the number of these appointments that have been made using new procedures involving the advertising of such posts on his Department's websites and the interview of the chairperson of boards by Oireachtas committee; if he will highlight situations where this process has not occurred; and the reason it has not occurred in each case. [5041/12]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The bodies under the aegis of my Department are the Civil Defence Board, the Army Pensions Board and the Board of Coiste an Asgard. The Civil Defence Act 2002 provides that the Board shall consist of at least eight but not more than fourteen members who shall be appointed by the Minister for Defence. Legislation is currently being drafted to dissolve the Civil Defence Board and transfer the functions of the Board back into the Department of Defence. I appointed the current Board as an interim measure from 11 July 2011. In this context, none of the positions were advertised, nor was the chairperson interviewed by an Oireachtas committee.

Membership of the interim Board appointed from 11 July 2011 is set out in the following table:

The Army Pensions Board is an independent statutory body established under the Army Pensions Act, 1927. The Act specifies that the Board shall consist of a chairman and two ordinary members. The two ordinary members must be qualified medical practitioners of whom one must be an officer of the Army Medical Corps. The chairman and the non-military ordinary member are appointed by the Minister for Defence with the concurrence of the Minister for Finance. The Army Medical Corps ordinary member is appointed by the Minister for Defence on the recommendation of the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces.

The position of Army Medical Corps ordinary member recently became vacant due to retirement, and I appointed Commandant Adam Lagun to the Board on and from 19 December 2011 on the recommendation of the Chief of Staff. As the Army Pensions Act 1927 specifies that one of the ordinary members must be an officer of the Army Medical Corps, this position could not be advertised on the Department's website. Details of Commandant Lagun's appointment to the Army Pensions Board were published in Iris Oifigiúil on 13 January 2012.

In the context of settling the Estimates for the Department of Defence for 2010, the Government decided that the national sail training scheme operated by Coiste an Asgard would be discontinued as recommended in the Report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure. As a result, no funding was provided in 2010 or 2011. No appointments have been made since that decision was taken and the Board will be dissolved shortly.