Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 April 2011
9 Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach in the context of his stated legal review of appointments by Ministers in the period between general elections and the meeting of the Dáil, if it will include a consideration of the large number of such appointments made by him and other Ministers in 1997. [6656/11]
View answerI asked the Attorney General for her advice regarding the appointments to State boards by Ministers of the former Government in the period between the recent election campaign and the formation of the new Government, the appropriateness of these appointments during that period and whether there may be an opportunity to address this further. During this period of time, the previous Government appointed 110 people to State boards. Legal advice from the Attorney General states that it is not possible to remove these appointees.
The Government intends to improve significantly the process by which vacancies on the boards of State agencies and companies are filled.
Is the Taoiseach aware that the scale of appointments between the general election and 9 March was only a fraction of what occurred in 1997? At that time, some Ministers, including Deputy Noonan, made appointments to positions which were not vacant and the Taoiseach himself appointed a trustee of Fine Gael to a State board on his way out of office. Therefore, the Taoiseach must agree that this is another case of the new Government trying to climb on a moral high horse, despite its members having personally engaged in practices they now condemn.
With regard to the alleged new regime due to come on stream, in terms of interviewing applicants etc., I understand that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Coveney, appointed a Mr. Meaney to the chair of Bord na gCon yesterday. Will the Taoiseach clarify whether that person was subject to an interview by any committee?
The Deputy is around here a long time and knows as well as I do that in the past Governments did this all the time. I raised this matter with my predecessor here, the former Taoiseach, Brian Cowen and suggested to him there should be no appointments made between the dissolution of the Dáil and the formation of the new Government. That was advance advice, but the Ministers of his Government did not heed that advice and went ahead and made 110 appointments.
Having taken the advice of the Attorney General, I will not go down the road of technical legislation or anything like that — we are stuck with it. That is why I have introduced changes that will bring about transparency and accountability to this area.
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food made a recommendation to Cabinet yesterday for the appointment of the chairman of Bord na gCon because there are some issues there that need to be attended to as a matter of urgency. That chairman will have to go before the appropriate agriculture committee to give his views on how the board should be run, his vision for it, the competencies he brings to the position and how he views the future for the board. As in all other cases, that will be available as a public discourse between the committee dealing with agriculture and the appointee to Bord na gCon.
Will the Taoiseach confirm if the person has taken up the position — if he has been appointed by the Government?
The person has been nominated and appointed by the Government. He will have to go before the committee and, I assume, on the basis of what I said earlier, all such persons will have the necessary credentials and competencies and will present those credentials in a fitting manner at the Oireachtas committees. That will bring about an openness and transparency and provide an opportunity for people who want to serve to present their credentials in a proper manner. As I said earlier, I believe to the Deputy, if somebody in that position were to completely flop, as it were, the Government would have to take that into account.
I support the idea of people going before committees for interview and I promoted that as part of our manifesto. However, it seems that what was done yesterday by the Government in regard to Bord na gCon is almost in breach of the new regime it announced yesterday. In essence, a person has been appointed before that person has been interviewed by any committee. That is the point I want to make in this respect.
The Taoiseach would have had already available to him significant legal advice about the raft of appointments made by the Minister, Deputy Noonan, to non-existent health board vacancies towards the end of 1997. With the severance payments and ministerial pensions Ministers of the current Government took when they were previously Ministers and now having regard to this case, it is a case of there being double standards in many respects.
I welcome the new regime. However, it is important that it is brought into play as quickly as possible. I note that the Minister, Deputy Hogan, was furiously prompting the Taoiseach as I asked my question.
I do not like hypocrisy. I do not like the hypocrite to whom I am listening.
The Minister was anxious to make an appointment to Bord na gCon a few weeks ago but we did not allow that to happen because we wanted the process to be in place. There are some urgent matters that need to be attended to in respect of Bord na gCon.
Deputy Martin should check those.
The person appointed will have to go before the Dáil committee once it is set up, which should be in the very near future.
Judging by the tenor of the friendly, loving conversation between the Taoiseach and Deputy Martin about appointments to the State boards, in which both of their parties have indulged, I do not believe they understand the huge cynicism among ordinary people about this blatant jobbery.
What about the Deputy's replacement to the European Parliament?
The replacement to the European Parliament——
How did the Deputy manage that?
——is provided for according to law. The Minister knows that well.
This is the law as well.
His party used the legal procedure, where five Deputies are announced before the election and their names published in Iris Oifigiúil and in polling stations.
What about jobs for the Deputy's boys?
The law which the Government made was adhered to in this respect to the letter.
The Deputy did not want to change it.
That is the democratic process, limited and all as has been provided for by the Government.
We are talking about disgraceful jobbery where 110 people were stuffed by Fianna Fáil on to State boards, just as Fine Gael did previously, and their only qualification, for the most part, is that they were hacks of the political parties concerned. When will we have an end to this kind of cynicism?
Very little time remains and three Deputies are offering. I ask that they put their questions together; I call Deputy Boyd Barrett to be followed by Deputies Adams and Cowen
I am trying to avail of the wisdom and experience of the people who have been here much longer than I have been on the issue of——
The Deputy is learning well.
——the relationship between the Taoiseach's Department and State boards, semi-States and so on. I submitted a question on the accountability for semi-States and State boards, which was passed to the Minister for Finance by which I was little surprised. Is it not to the Taoiseach the people on State boards and semi-State boards should be responsible and should we not be allowed ask the Taoiseach questions about that in order that there is accountability in that respect to the Dáil?
The process by which these appointments are made must become more transparent. I welcome anything that brings that about. It is very regrettable that those who were appointed by the previous Government in its last days in office cannot be removed. I welcome the fact that proposed appointees will have to appear before committees but that cannot be just a rubber-stamp process. What happened previously was political patronage, plain and simple. In regard to the committee dealing with the appointment of the chair of Bord na gCon, and it is arguable that the dogs in the street are talking about that one, is that a nomination——
No, it is an appointment.
——or an appointment? What role then does that committee have? Can it say no to that? I understand there is a very good system in place in the United States, although I am not an expert on this, by which people being appointed have to go before quite powerful committees which can stop them from being appointed.
My comment is in the same vein. While I welcome the appointment of Mr. Meaney and I am sure he is most suited and capable to do the job at hand, it was an appointment that was overdue in the sense that the previous Government did not pursue an appointment to the chair of that board, as the Taoiseach well knows. The Government has made this appointment. Yesterday we were enamoured to hear the process that was to be engaged by the Government in regard to appointments such as this one. Like Deputy Adams, while I believe the appointee is quite suitable and capable and I am sure he will do a good job in the difficult role the board has in providing a service in that industry, if the committee is not of the same view as myself or the Taoiseach about Mr. Meaney's appointment, what teeth has it and what sort of a hoodwinking exercise is it to be in the future, if in its first day it is proved to be so?
Deputy Higgins raised the business of appointments, cronyism and all the rest of it. I have made it clear to Ministers that we have to take into account gender balance, competency and the credibility of people who offer themselves for appointment as chairs or to the membership of State boards. The second last Taoiseach, the former Deputy Bertie Ahern, admitted to me here that a significant number of appointments were made on the basis of friendship as distinct from merit. There is a commitment to a reduction in the number of quangos in place and obviously that will result in a reduction in the number of such appointments.
Deputy Cowen raised the question of what teeth the committee might have. The process here will not be the same as that in the United States where an investigation and all kinds of analysis is conducted of people who present themselves. The Government will make an appointment to the chair of a State board and that person will be required to go before the committee. The process will not be an interrogation but an opportunity for that person to present his or her case, vision, view for the agency or board involved. If the person makes a hames of that, obviously the Government will have to take that into account. Following the person's appearance before the relevant Dáil committee, be it agriculture, education, foreign affairs or whatever, the Government will sign off final approval on the appointment.
Therefore, it is the Government that makes the appointment in the end.
It is not a case of the committee on agriculture having the final say in respect of any such appointment.
It is the Government that will have it.
This is for the sake of optics.
It is the Government that makes the appointment but there is an opportunity to have a far——
The Government has a majority on all of them.
——greater degree of openness and transparency than existed previously.
However, the Government has a majority on all of them.
The Deputy's party made 110 appointments.
It is an optical illusion.
We will now have statements on the European Council.
Deputy Boyd Barrett's question was transferred to the Department of Finance. I do not know what question he asked. It was probably related to the fact that the board in question was under the aegis of that Department.
I asked a general question about semi-State companies and State boards.
The matter would be referred to the line Minister in the first instance, but it is the Government which makes the appointments.
