TDs and senators who are ministerial appointees may avoid having to give up their seats on health boards when the dual mandate ends, it has emerged.
The dual mandate is to end from the local elections of 2004 and it means members of the Oireachtas can no longer serve on local authorities. The objective is to separate local government from the national legislature and to inject new blood into local government.
Mr Jackie Healy-Rae TD insisted yesterday he was not giving up the seat he has held on the Southern Health Board since 1973. For much of this time he was appointed not by Kerry County Council but by individual ministers for health.
Currently on the Southern Health Board, both Mr Healy-Rae and Mr Donal Moynihan (FF) were appointed by the Minister Mr Martin, along with a Cork city councillor, Mr Terry Shannon (FF), in March 2002 to serve a five-year term.
Mr Healy-Rae has been a consistent and outspoken critic of the ending of the dual mandate system. It will finish direct local access to central government, he said.
There will be nobody "to carry the message" directly from Kerry County Council, he added.
A number of TDs have already resigned from the SHB in advance of the 2004 deadline. These include Ms Kathleen Lynch (Lab), Mr John Dennehy (FF), Mr Bernard Allen (FG), Mr Noel O'Flynn (FF) and Mr Simon Coveney (FG) .
A spokesman for the Department of Health yesterday said that while the dual mandate legislation was not yet complete, it was likely TDs and senators who were ministerial appointees could remain on the health boards, as they were appointed in an individual capacity. The Minister for Health was entitled to appoint three members to each of the health boards.
However, not all of these would be TDs or senators. Some ministerial nominees would have community and medical backgrounds.