Patrick Nulty (Dublin West, Labour)
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170. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality further to his announcement of 16 April 2013the names of fourteen persons who are to serve as members of the board of the Equality Authority in the interim before the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is established; the names of the two persons appointed by him on the nomination of representatives of employees as required by Section 44(1)(a) of the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2011; the names of the two persons appointed by him on the nomination of representatives of employers as required by Section 44(1)(b) of the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2011; the organisation or organisations representing employees and representing employers that made those nominations;; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22106/13]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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It is a fundamental requirement of the Paris Principles that the members of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission be independent. This includes but is not limited to being independent of Government. The question of whether Commissioners should be nominated by any social partner organisation or be representative of any particular sector or NGO was expressly considered by the Working Group I set up to advise me on practical issues in relation to the establishment of the new Commission. The Group recommended that members of the new Commission be selected by a process independent of the Government, serving on appointment independently in their individual capacity and that their appointments should not be made on representative or nomination basis as heretofore was the case in relation to a number of positions on the Equality Authority board.

Members of the Working Group noted the historical development of the Equality Authority from a body purely focused on employment issues with representation from the employer and employee interests. The Working Group considered with the development of the wider remit of the new IHREC, representation of any corporate body or sectoral interest as of right on the new Commission is not appropriate. They went on to recommend that the new legislation should allow IHREC to establish subcommittees of the Commission to enable representatives of a wide range of interests to contribute in an advisory capacity. The Government accepted this recommendation (and indeed all the recommendations of the Working Group relating to the legislation) and this is reflected in the General Scheme of the Bill as published. I might mention that the selection procedure set out in the Heads was also endorsed by the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, before whom I caused the General Scheme to be laid and whose advice I sought. In these circumstances, and as I anticipate that the legislation to establish IHREC will be published before too long, I do not regard it as appropriate to make any appointments as Commissioner designate outside of the independent selection process that has recently concluded with the recommendation of the 14 persons referred to in the question to be members of IHREC and of the existing bodies on an interim basis.

As already announced, (and detailed in the table below) these 14 persons were appointed by the Government as members of Human Rights Commission on 16 April 2013 under the Human Rights Commission Act 2000, pending the establishment of the IHREC. The issues in relation to the interim appointments to the board of the Equality Authority, also under the relevant existing legislation (the Employment Equality Act 1998) will be discussed when I meet the members designate shortly.

TABLE