Coalition to install 300 people on State boards before election [IrishTimes]
- Published: 16 December 2010
THE GOVERNMENT is to make almost 300 appointments to State boards before it leaves office early next year. The Green Party last month demanded an election in January but March has emerged as a more likely date since then for the election.
Information provided to Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar following parliamentary questions, outlined that 35 appointments and reappointments have been made since the Green Party announcement in November. Twenty of these were made by Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment John Gormley.
Of a total of 291 appointments due to be made before the end of February, 96 will be made by Minister for Health Mary Harney and 33 by Minister for Enterprise Batt O’Keeffe. Minister for Education and Skills Mary Coughlan, who will appoint 31, recently appointed Gerry Horkan, a Fianna Fáil councillor in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, to the Dental Council. Mr Horkan said the post was not remunerated. Some of the appointees will be paid, others will not. Subsistence and travel expenses also apply to some posts.
Between November 22nd and Tuesday of this week, Mr Gormley made two new appointments to the Dublin Docklands Development Authority; four to the board of the National Building Agency, and reappointed four others. He made four appointments to the new Housing and Sustainable Communities Limited board, two new appointments to the Private Residential Tenancies Board and four reappointments to the Heritage Council.
Mr Varadkar called for a moratorium on appointments to State boards until after the election. He said the posts include “some very lucrative ones and some very powerful ones”. I’m not saying any of these people they have appointed are bad . . . there should be Oireachtas scrutiny.”
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