THE GOVERNMENT has decided to allow members of the public apply for appointment to State boards but, on legal advice, has abandoned a pledge to sack people appointed in the dying days of the last government.
At its meeting yesterday the Cabinet approved a memorandum from Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin proposing that vacancies on State boards should in future be advertised on the website of the relevant Government department.
A Government spokesman said later that departments would seek expressions of interest from members of the public for vacancies as they arose. He added, however, that the chairmen of State bodies would continue to be nominated by the Minister but would have to appear before the relevant Oireachtas committee before the appointment was ratified.
Oireachtas committees will not have a veto on the appointments, but will be entitled to question the designated appointees about their priorities and plans.
Committees will also be entitled to summon the chief executives of State bodies on a regular basis to answer parliamentary questions that can be submitted by any member.
Despite the anger at the number of appointments to semi-State boards made by the last government in its final days, the Cabinet decided not to make any enforced changes.
The Government spokesman said it was not possible to remove people from State boards, including those who had been appointed late in the life of the last government.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Dáil two weeks ago the Fianna Fáil government had made appointments “based on friendship as distinct from merit”. He said he had raised the issue with his predecessor Brian Cowen before he left office.
Minister of State for Public Expenditure Brian Hayes had called on those appointed in the last days of the outgoing government to “do the right thing” and resign.
He said newly appointed directors who were “clearly close to Fianna Fáil should exclude themselves and stand down to make it easier for the Government to introduce the reforms which we intend to introduce.”
To date none of the Fianna Fáil appointees have taken up Mr Hayes’s suggestion.