On behalf of the committee I welcome our guests, Mr. Stuart Switzer, Ms Orlaith Carmody, Ms Eunice O'Raw and Ms Aileen O'Meara. The purpose of today's meeting is to hear presentations from candidates for nomination to the boards of RTÉ and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. The Broadcasting Act 2009 introduced a new method of appointment to State boards. For the first time, an Oireachtas committee has been mandated to recommend individuals for appointment to the board of State agencies. The candidates, if ratified by the committee, will join the members of the board recently appointed by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan.
The joint committee was aware from the outset that this process was innovative. It was also a new responsibility for the committee and we were concerned to ensure that we got it right. We have worked hard to ensure that the selection process would be transparent and open, accessible to anybody meeting the required criteria, and that it would enable us to select the best candidates for the role, based on merit, but subject to compliance with the legislation and best practice in the appointments procedure. To that end, we decided to open the process by advertising for expressions of interest, which meant that nomination was accessible to anybody with the relevant qualifications. We considered holding all of the proceedings in public but decided against it as it would have been unfair to the candidates to expect them to interview in public.
Following receipt of applications we compiled a shortlist. We had 269 applications, 139 for the RTÉ board and 130 for the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland. The shortlist comprised 44 people. Following preliminary discussions with the shortlisted candidates, 20 people were called for formal interview. The interview board was made up of four members of the joint committee, Deputies Simon Coveney and Liz McManus, Senator Joe O'Toole and myself. The interviews were facilitated by the Public Appointments Service, who also gave us invaluable advice and assistance throughout the process, for which we are very grateful. The interviewing panel took two days to interview the shortlisted candidates.
The interview board has recommended eight people to the joint committee, four for each board. The purpose of today's meeting is to give committee members a forum to question the eight candidates in order to confirm that they have the required skills and experience to serve on these important authorities, and also to afford the candidates an opportunity to address the full joint committee.
We shall take the candidates for the RTÉ board first. We have apologies from Deputies Simon Coveney and Liz McManus who are representing the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security at the Copenhagen UN convention. We shall start with Ms Aileen O'Meara and will afford people five minutes each and then I shall ask committee members if they have any questions.