The Minister for Transport is facing a new round of board trouble at DAA, as unfilled vacancies and looming departures threaten a power vacuum at the top of the State airports company.
Darragh O’Brien has acknowledged the need to recruit several board directors – including a new chair in June – but this comes as the DAA prepares to initiate a process for appointing a successor to Kenny Jacobs, the former chief executive.
The legal conflict between the Jacobs and DAA came to a head in recent days without a High Court hearing. They struck a deal in which Jacobs stood down voluntarily to end a bitter rift with the board that dominated its work for many months.
With that matter resolved, the need for O’Brien to hire independent non-executive directors has assumed new urgency because worker-directors are now close to a board majority when chairman Basil Geoghegan is excluded.
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“The Department regularly engages with DAA on governance matters, including succession planning for the DAA board,” O’Brien’s office said in reply to questions.
“Arising from these engagements, the Department expects a recruitment campaign for vacancies will be advertised through PublicJobs in due course,” it added, referring to the State recruitment service.
O’Brien will seek Cabinet approval on Tuesday for draft laws to eliminate the annual 32 million passenger cap on Dublin Airport, which has left it in breach of planning directions for two successive years.
The task of advancing this complex legislation comes with imminent board moves raising questions over compliance with corporate governance rules.
The board is supposed to work under a majority of independent non-executive directors appointed by the Minister, who is the shareholder in the company that runs Dublin and Cork airports.
But two recent non-executive director departures and a long-standing vacancy have tipped the balance to the extent that there is now an equal number of independent directors and worker-directors, who are not considered independent.
Although Geoghegan’s casting vote means the independents are still effectively in a majority, another one of the non-executives is scheduled to leave the board in three weeks.
The directorship of Peter Cross, a ministerial appointee who leads Trasna Corporate Finance, expires on March 3rd.
If his term is not extended and no new non-executive director is appointed, the DAA board will then have four worker-directors, three non-executive directors and the chairman.
Some in the DAA believe that would present governance issues, not least because worker-directors usually comprise only a minority on the board.
Geoghegan himself is due to stand down on June 12th after two terms. Ger Perdisatt, another ministerial appointee, is scheduled to leave on July 4th. Senior independent director Risteard Sheridan stands down on September 23rd after two terms as a ministerial appointee.
The expiry of the Cross term comes after ministerial appointee Karen Morton left the DAA board on January 22nd and ministerial appointee Marie Joyce left on December 31st. Another ministerial appointee left in January 2025 but was not replaced.
Jacobs himself was an ex officio member of the DAA board but the nature of the chief executive post is such that the holder is not considered an independent director.
DAA has been under the day-to-day command since Christmas of newly-appointed deputy chief executive Nick Cole. However, that post does not include a board directorship.
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