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THE GOVERNMENT HAS acknowledged that no records exist in its individual departments regarding the membership of state boards in other areas of the executive.
There are in the region of 200 state boards in Ireland, with varying levels of membership numbers, tenure, and remuneration (many are unpaid).
Applications for membership of those boards are made via the Public Appointments Service (PAS), the entity which handles the allocation of all civil service roles, which then makes a recommendation to the relevant minister.
The guidelines for state board appointments stress that no one person should hold more than two such positions, nor should they serve more than two full terms of appointment.
However, while the membership of boards can be accessed via a dedicated online portal of the PAS, each government department has now admitted that it keeps no such records regarding what plurality of employment may exist on its own boards and that of its sister departments, nor are they aware of their appointees’ historic membership of state boards, if any.
A series of parliamentary questions tabled by Meath Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín to each individual department regarding the extent to which their own board members hold other such appointments were met with the same response across the board, albeit expressed in different ways: “the specific information sought is not available, nor does the PAS have access to said information.”
The various departments also acknowledged that no records are available regarding where their own board members have previously served on other boards.
Controversy
Tóibín, who serves as chairperson of the Oireachtas culture committee, has previously raised his reservations regarding the diversity of appointments to state boards, and the appointments process itself, which is ostensibly fully open to the public.
State board appointments have often courted scandal in the past, such as when then Arts Minister Heather Humphreys appointed Donegal man John McNulty to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in 2014, ahead of his nomination as a candidate for the Seanad’s culture and education panel.
The fallout from that controversy saw then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin launch the aforementioned guidelines regarding board appointments – including the stipulation that all roles be advertised publicly by the PAS.
However, the final appointment of any candidate to a board is still made by the relevant minister under whose aegis the entity in question falls.
“A history of government nepotism has in the past brought some state boards into disrepute,” he told TheJournal.ie. “When a person is wearing a number of hats this can lead to conflicts of interests.”
‘Not a clue’
Logic would dictate that that in order to guarantee diversity and ensure a broad participation within state boards, the state would know whether is a candidate a member of another state board and whether they have other roles in the sector, or when they were last occupying a position on a state board.
“According to my questions, they have not a clue,” he said.
Tóibín’s questions were originally inspired by a complaint from a member of the public (who isn’t a civil servant but who does have strong academic qualifications) who had applied repeatedly for state board positions in recent years within their own area of expertise, without ever even being called for interview.
“No one records if candidates are operating on other state boards or have had multiple roles on state boards previously,” he said.
This is a mistake and needs to be rectified immediately.
“It’s also critical that they pull from a wide pool of people,” he added. “There have been significant concerns that many of those selected to state boards have been drawn from a limited socio-economic and geographic pool and therefore are not fully representative.”
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I wonder if anybody has actually studied which countries actually pose or have posed the most serious threat to the US.
I won’t even ask if they know which countries actually carried out the largest terrorist attacks against the US and if they are on the list.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. But Trump has businesses in those countries. He has no businesses in the countries he proposes to ban.
Even though they harbour and support terrorists?
Saudi Arabia -
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/18/what-we-know-about-saudi-arabias-role-in-911/amp/
The US have oil interests in Saudi, so unsurprisingly, not listed.
While undoubtedly a megalomaniac, the US defence contacts outweigh his personal interests, which is why these countries are off the list. His own families legacy and financial security is already set, and now that he has seen how he can raise military spending by tens of billions, he’ll start to grasping that power… even if it means Ivanka’s clothes don’t sell, her husband will still be at the heart of these new military contacts.
The seven countries on the list were identified by the Obama administration as the most likely sources of future terrorist attacks on US soil.
@Jason Culligan:
Great idea to forget the past and the schools and those that are financing them, that are bringing up new generations of terrorists and extremists.
Jason: How can they think pakistan poses no threat when they are using drones to kill terrorists in pakistan as we speak?
And an aggressive ban such as this will only serve to cause more terrorists to radicalise.
This ban is only to appease Trumps xenophobic followers, and won’t prevent any terrorism
@Jason Culligan: Lets talk about Iran ? What changes to the current visa programme will make America safer ? Thanks.
PS.Have the Homeland Security come out with a statement regards an imminent threat from these 7 countries ?
@Dave Harris What a lazy comparision to make : Well if the ban “serve to cause more terrorists to radicalise” Good . More drones to take them out then . So they must have been on the edge anyway
@Brian Lilly: There is some sort of policing in these countries, some control at least.
Any comment on the fact that Israeli Jews are banned from entering any of the countries on Trump’s proposed travel ban, and in most of these countries an Irish citizen would be banned from entering if they so much as have an Israeli exit / entry stamp on their Irish passport ? This has been the case for years and we’ve all been extremely quiet about it..
Well two wrongs do make a right I suppose.
@Karen Wellington: For the record Karen I don’t agree with any travel ban that is based on nationality or race – the concept of singling out people based on the colour of their passport is disgusting to me. However, I do recognise the hypocrisy in social media commentary in this country, where being anti-Israeli seems to be acceptable but being anti Iranian is horribly racist..
Countries can decide who comes in, or not – for any reason.
How is it wrong to impose restrictions on visas from countries you’re not friendly with. Israel have been known to assassinate individuals in other countries. They done so not too long ago using fake Irish passports. While you won’t stop that it seems silly to just let them wonder in.
Maybe because israel is doing pretty evil shit
@Awkward Seal: For the same reason that the UK didn’t impose a blanket ban on Irish citizens entering their country during the ’60s, ’70s & ’80s – they knew that we weren’t all intent on bombing their pubs and that most of us are law abiding and sensible people, so they allowed entry but carried out security checks. Blanket bans based on nationality is racist, uncivilised and downright unfair.
Unfair, maybe – but security and safety are more information than fairness. Every state has the right to dictate who visits, or doesn’t – do you actually think otherwise?
@willypearson: I agree, as are Syria, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Sudan, Somalia – and don’t forget UK, Russia, Japan, Australia, France, USA, Korea, China… My point is that the Irish seem to be blinkered and single out Jewish Israel over all others.
Every country develops such policies based on the standards of the country. In the US this ban had previously been argued against as unconstitutional. If you have a constitution you pass laws that are not in conflict with it.
A blanket ban on a nation isn’t racist as it doesn’t specifically target race. If the UK were to impose a blanket ban on Irish travelling to the UK they would have been justified as it would have cut down on the number of terrorists attacks. However there is a cost-benefit analysis to such a move that would make it not worth it in most cases. If it’s unfair so what. No country is obliged to be fair to the citizens of other countries. If they don’t want to be discriminated against because of the passport they hold they should try to reform their counties so that the state doesn’t sponsor terrorism. Civilisation is based on rules. Every country in the world limits the number of people that are allowed to enter and citizens of different countries are treated differently. Some can enter for as long as they wish, some may only apply for certain visas and stay a limited amount of time and the number of visas allocated to different countries varies too. So basically every country in the world is unfairly discriminating based on nationality. So your whole argument is nonsense unless you’re advocating for open borders worldwide.
This is for s h i t s ville but seems to have posted to the wrong place
Trump is right.
@John Henry: Trump is infallible and all seeing. Trump is God. Bow down and worship our great leader. Let him rule the planet and the skies. His wisdom is infinite.
@Tony Daly: Hes not that great Tony but we get your point. Long live King Trump!
There’s a lot more scrutiny of major decisions – in the US – than here…
@Fank Pulman: you raise a very interesting but provocative point.
Politicians around the world are loving this Trump circus – all sorts of crafty shenanigans can be done under the distractions
It sounds like they have no legal leg to stand on. If Trump said the sky was blue there’d be protests on the street calling him racist against the sky.
Except that trumps is more likely to say that the sky is green.
The usual Democrat state’s running in to court going nowhere on this occasion
Trump is such a unifying President. He is coherent the US nation. He should be made honorary Chairman of FG.
Your second sentence is gibberish, and your point is childish…
@Fank Pulman: cohering the US nation.
Just being facetious.
Trump brings out that unworthy quality in me but fair criticism which I accept.
@Jason Culligan: Red herring
have your say