Written answers

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

Appointments to State Boards

Photo of Niall CollinsNiall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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296. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide, for each appointee to State Boards, the persons reappointed who did not apply under the new system of appointments to State boards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24991/15]

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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In response to the Deputy's question there are currently two state boards under my remit, these are the Public Appointments Service (PAS) and the Institute of Public Administration (IPA). 

As the Deputy will be aware during the tendering process for the National Lottery licence I considered it appropriate to re-appoint two of the Ministerial nominees to the An Post National Lottery Board; Mr. Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh has been re-appointed twice and Mr. Oliver Wilkinson has been re-appointed once.  Consequently recourse to advertising the positions publicly did not arise.

The Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act, 2004 states that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (in consultation with Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Justice and Equality) should appoint members of the Board of the Public Appointments Service.

The Public Appointments Service Board is meant to be representative of our client base.  The majority of the board are therefore civil or public servants, nominated by the relevant Minister.  There is also a union representative nominated by ICTU.  The two external members were appointed by me because of their expertise in strategic change and public service recruitment respectively.  In view of these statutory procedures for the appointment of members of the Boards, there is limited scope for me to use the Publicjobs.ie website.

As per the Memorandum and Articles of Association governing the IPA, each of the nominating bodies/sectors is invited by letter to nominate its representative to the Board on a two-yearly basis.  As a limited company by guarantee, the IPA is obliged to state its approach to the appointment of board members in its Memorandum and Articles of Association Section 16(1) of same refers to the board make-up and the sectoral nominations. In effect it would contravene the M&A if Board positions were to be advertised.

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