“The make up of the membership on state boards will have to be investigated by the new Government to provide fair representation from around the country” That’s the view of Roscommon-Galway Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice who has been looking at state boards in the Transport sector in particular.
“I have had research carried out on this matter and some of the figures are startling. Of the 155 state board members in various state transport companies like Iarnród Eireann, Tourism Ireland, Bus Eireann and the National Transport Authority and others, a whopping 118 come from Dublin. I am not criticising these people personally. They could all be excellent people but how are we to have balanced regional development if the vast majority are from the Dublin area? You might have an excellent board member from Ulster, Connacht or Munster but often times they are a lone voice with all the other members from the Dublin area. Our research shows that Munster has 25 % of the population but has only 12% of the board members while Connacht has 14% of the population but only 4% of the members.This situation cannot be allowed to continue. I am calling on the new Minister for Transport Shane Ross to address this situation and I am also calling on all other Ministers to review the make up of state boards across every department to make them more representative of the spread of the population” he concluded.