Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

First, I will speak briefly in support of the Chair's amendment. Then I will speak briefly to my two amendments in the interest of time.

I understand that the original idea to change the name of the board predates the controversy that engulfed the board last year and the year before.

In principle, I was more than happy with the proposition to change the name for the reasons the Minister has outlined. However, the employees of the board and the union representatives have met many of us at an earlier point in the passage of the Bill and the problem is that even though there is a longer-standing intention to change the name of the board to reflect the comprehensive nature of its work, there is a very strong feeling among a large number of staff that the name change in some way reflects badly or is a judgment on the work they have done. I know that is absolutely not the case, which also is the Minister's view and that of many of us here, but in deference to the staff and given the strength of feeling, I am more than happy to support the Chair's amendment. I ask the Minister to revisit that issue or at least give it some thought. This is not a matter for the Bill but when the union representatives met many of us, they expressed a concern that their employer, which I acknowledge is not the Minister or the Department but is the board, had not engaged sufficiently with the workforce around what are significant and fundamental changes. These are changes I broadly support. They are good. We raised this previously with officials but in his engagement with senior management of the board and the board itself, the Minister should impress upon them the need for the staff, who were not responsible for any of the controversies that have engulfed the board, to be engaged with and listened to in this period of transformation. That is absolutely crucial.

Very briefly, I will speak to my amendments once in the interests of time. Amendment No. 1101 seeks to ensure the chief planning commissioner and deputy chief planning commissioner, as they are set out in the Bill, would need to have one or more of a range of very important skills that are set out in the amendment. Amendment No. 1102, with respect to the ordinary planning commissioners, again asks that they would have one or more of a key sets of skills that are there.