The terms of reference of the Keegan report referred to by the Deputy were "to review all matters pertaining to the appointment of the Solicitor-in-Charge in Monaghan Law Centre in order to establish whether the appointment was carried out in accordance with public service standards."
The background to the review was set out by me in the House in the course of debate on the Adjournment on 25 January 1995 and I also dealt with the matter in the course of supplementary questions on 31 January 1995. I undertook on both occasions to give information about the outcome of the review. I honoured that commitment, immediately after consultations with the Legal Aid Board, by arranging to have a copy of the report placed in the Oireachtas Library on 28 February, 1995.
I am delighted to be able to inform the House that the Keegan report dated 6 February 1995, has found the appointment in question to be based entirely on merit. Another main finding in the report is that while Mr. Keegan was satisfied that, in all essentials, the actual recruitment process of preliminary interview and final interview for solicitor-in-charge posts, as a result of which the Monaghan post was filled, was carried out in accordance with normal public service standards, the filing and surrounding paperwork was haphazard and unsatisfactory. He reports it would be an understatement to say that the filing and paperwork lacked transparency. There was, he states, no coherent competition file and that it should have been a straightforward operation to establish the process which led to the Monaghan appointment. That was not the case and, if it was, he says, no great problem would have arisen in the first place when my Department sought basic information about the appointment.
A series of recommendations have been made by him regarding the way in which the recruitment process could be improved by the board and how relations, which he detected as being poor between management, the law centre solicitors and the unions representing them, could be improved.
While I welcome the finding that the Monaghan appointment was in order, I am concerned at the criticism levelled at the personnel management system operated by the board and the extent to which the recruitment process which they have operated to fill senior solicitor posts does not appear to have the confidence of solicitor staff and the unions. These are matters which must now be addressed by the board and its management staff. Guidelines have been established in the report on how to go about matters in the future to improve the situation. I have asked the board to arrange for early implementation of the recommendations in the report and I look forward, as I am sure the House will, to progress in the matter. The board has informed me that it has no difficulties in principle with the various conclusions and recommendations contrained in the report.
There are two further matters which I should like to mention. First, I wish to say in respect of the person who was appointed to the Monaghan post that I can understand, and I regret, any distress or inconvenience which recent events, including media coverage, may have caused to that person. The media coverage, to which I referred in earlier debates in the House, was of a kind which distorted the facts. Those who sought the publicity clearly had no regard for the effect it might have on the appointee. The aim, it appears, was to get across a version of events to question the need for a review, to question my authority to order the review and to question even the standing of the person carrying out the review. The appointee should not, in any event have been expected to carry the burden of the publicity involved and I hope that those responsible now accept and realise the damage that was done by their actions.
Second, I want to place on the record of the House my appreciation of Mr. Keegan for a job thoroughly well done. I have no doubt that the board and its management staff and the unions will benefit from the very clear-sighted views and recommendations he has set out in his report.
Copies of the report have been furnished to the unions representing the law centre solicitors. It was, of course, their concern about the Monaghan appointment which initially led me to make inquiries about the appointment and to eventually decide on an independent review of the case by Mr. Keegan. A copy has also been furnished to the solicitor-in-charge in Monaghan and, as indicated earlier, a copy has been placed in the Oireachtas Library.