The Government has rejected a Green Party Private Member's Bill that would remove from Ministers the right to make appointments to State boards. Minister of State for Finance Tom Parlon argued that the Bill would deprive the State of access to knowledge and experience needed in the public service. This had proved useful in the public appointments service in State companies, he said.
"I would also point out that once a prospective board member accepts the offer of a position on the board, he or she is subject to the requirements of a range of legislation and guidelines, most notably the ethics act and the code of practice for the governance of State bodies."
Mr Parlon said the code of practice set out guidelines seeking to ensure that public bodies were run to the highest standards.
"It is not a prescriptive list as to how the body should be run but rather it seeks to guide bodies and their boards to ensure that best practice is followed and that the requirements of other guidelines or legislation are adhered to."
The Green Party is proposing to set up a special unit within the Commission for Public Service Appointments, that would hold open competition to recruit members, and an Oireachtas committee to ratify appointments. Appointments to international organisations would be the subject of a Dáil vote.
Introducing the Appointments to Public Bodies Bill 2007, Green Party finance spokesman Dan Boyle said the danger of a culture of corruption existed.
"There are a number of tribunals currently in place dealing with the most obvious examples of corruption in the past. It could very well be that there will be a need for further tribunals."
He believed that one of the reasons why corruption continued was due to petty corruption linked to political patronage.
"This has everything to do with how we have selected people to represent and make contributions to public State bodies."
Mr Boyle said the overwhelming number of people selected for State bodies had ability and made their contribution out of a sense of public spirit.
"I think we have to make a distinction between who is chosen and how they become chosen. In terms of winning public confidence, and of having the highest quality of standards of democracy, the system and the process have to be beyond approach.
"And here, after 85 years or so of the history of this State, there is still a perception that many public appointments are unfortunately made on the basis of who you know and who you are in terms of political affiliation." This, he added, did not stop people of ability coming through, but it did not always provide people of the best ability.
Mr Parlon said the Bill was not workable or necessary.
"Indeed, it fails on all those aspects. The fact of the matter is that the current system works. It may not be a perfect system but no system is. However, it has worked over time. The Bill proposed is heavy-handed and bureaucratic and would make it difficult to recruit appropriate people to State bodies and advisory groups."
Mr Parlon saidthe Government was committed to strong, effective corporate governance of public bodies and had put in place a code of practice.The code was kept under review in consultation with all stakeholders.
"The proposals from Deputy Boyle will make the job of improving corporate governance in our public bodies more difficult to achieve by deterring rather than attracting candidates of the calibre needed,"he said.
