State board appointments
Seán Fleming asks whether the new State-board appointments framework will require legislation and how it will operate. The Taoiseach says the framework has been approved, awaits publication, and will use the public stateboards.ie appointments system.
The Taoiseach has announced that this day next month we will have a new framework for appointments to State boards. Will this require legislation or will it be just another circular that will be issued and ignored? When will we be able to discuss this legislation? It sounds from what has been said publicly by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, as though the only change is that any person the Government wants to put on a State board will be required to send a curriculum vitae to the Commission for Public Service Appointments. That will then work its way back to the Minister who can ignore the process and appoint anyone from the list that comes back.
When the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 was going through the Oireachtas, it was well flagged - the Government was well warned - that there were major flaws in the legislation which rendered it incapable of working. Reports show that there are very few insolvency declarations taking place. The Government has a Bill on the legislative programme to correct the foreseeable failures of the Act. When will we see that legislation?
Comment on this
That was approved a couple of weeks ago and is awaiting publication. I will advise the Deputy of when that is going to happen.
On the other matter, a memorandum was prepared quite some time ago by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform which has now been revamped and was approved by Government yesterday. The PAS scheme on stateboards.ie is already in situ and 200 appointments were made using it. We now want all Departments to use this facility so that the public know there is one facility setting out the boards, the vacancies, the criteria and the skill sets required. In addition, the Cabinet sub-committee gave a recommendation for clearance for the public service reform propositions that the Minister, Deputy Howlin, has worked on extensively. They will be published and launched by him very shortly. There may be elements of that which require legislation. I will advise the Deputy.