asked the President if his attention has been drawn to a request sent to the Local Appointments Commission in connection with the appointment of a Borough Surveyor for the City of Waterford, and if he is aware that only one name was submitted to the Corporation as a suitable candidate out of a list of 11 applicants, which included a fully qualified Surveyor, born in the City of Waterford, and at present employed by the Hertfordshire County Council, and to ask if the request of the Corporation to supply the qualifications of all the applicants will be acceded to, and whether he intends to persist in forcing the Corporation to accept the decision of the Appointments Commission, and thus leaving the Corporation no choice.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - WATERFORD BOROUGH SURVEYORSHIP.
The Local Appointments Commissioners, after full inquiry and with the report before them of a competent Board of Selection which personally interviewed and assessed the technical qualifications of each of the candidates, recommended the name of only one person to the Waterford Corporation for the position referred to in the question. The candidate so recommended was the most highly qualified for the post, and in the recommendation of only one person the Commissioners are acting within their statutory discretion in compliance with the obligation placed on them by the statute governing their proceedings. The Commissioners inform me that it has not been their practice to furnish a list of the qualifications of unsuccessful candidates for vacant posts and it is not their intention to do so in the present case.
Section 6 (4) of the Local Authorities (Officers and Employees) Act, 1926, renders it mandatory upon the local authority to appoint the person recommended by the Commissioners.
Is it the settled policy of the Executive that a local body like the Waterford Corporation should be given no option whatever as a matter of choice, and that merely one name should be submitted to them out of 11?
The policy of the Executive does not enter into it. The Executive, as a matter of fact, have no function in the matter at all, and the functions of the Local Appointments Commissioners are set out in the statute and are governed by it and any action they have taken is action taken under that particular statute.
As a result of the action taken in this special instance, is the President prepared to say that it is fair to a local council that they should not have before them the various qualifications of the different applicants?
That question must be considered in the light of the views of the persons who apply for the posts, and one applicant for this post has objected to the Corporation or to any person or body being supplied with information regarding his qualifications. The candidates generally were not informed that their qualifications would be published after the appointment had been made.
Will the President——
Deputy Alfred Byrne.
Arising out of that question, I want to ask——
I have called the next question.
Am I not entitled to ask a supplementary question?
The Deputy is entitled to ask as many supplementary questions as may be allowed by the Chair. There are 40 questions on the Order Paper.
Then I will put down another question.