Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 April 2025
680. Deputy Maeve O'Connell asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to report on any instructions given or planned, on the appointment criteria for State boards part of the Public Appointments Service, to ensure that board appointments include candidates that can enable each agency adapt to the changing global economic environment and its local impacts. [20815/25]
View answerI am informed that publicjobs, who provide the mechanism for assessment of applicants for State Boards, and a body under the aegis of my department, agree the criteria for the appointment of State Board members with the relevant Minister before a campaign is run, and are influenced by the legislation governing the establishment of the State body.
While no specific instruction has been given to date to ensure that board appointments include candidates that can enable each agency adapt to the changing global economic environment and its local impacts, the skills and experience that produce the same result, such as flexibility, problem solving skills, open-mindedness or agility are usually assessed during the assessment process conducted in line with the Guidelines on Appointments to State Boards published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in November, 2014.
Furthermore, the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies in section 2.2 indicates that “where a Chairperson is of the view that specific skills are required on the Board, he/she should advise the relevant Minister of this view for his/her consideration sufficiently in advance of a time when Board vacancies are due to arise. This is in order to seek to ensure that the process undertaken under the Guidelines for Appointments to State Boards identifies candidates with those skills and so that the Minister may take the Chairperson’s views into consideration when making appointments from qualified candidates from the stateboards.ie process.
