Part 4 of the Nurses and Midwives Act, 2011 required the Minister of Health to appoint a new Board to Bord Altranais agus Cnáimhseachais na hÉireann, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland. The Board, comprising 23 members, includes eight elected registered nurses and midwives, representing general, children’s, psychiatric, intellectual disability, public health nursing, midwifery, care of older persons and nursing and midwifery education in the public health sector.
Commencement Order (S.I. No. 275) of 2012 necessary for the election of the new Board was published on 25 July 2012. Procedures specified by the Minister for the election of the eight registered nurses and midwives to the Board provided that the election would take the form of an electronic ballot. Every nurse and midwife on the Register on the 22 August 2012 was entitled to vote in the election and over 91,000 nurses and midwives were entitled to cast one vote in each of the eight polls undertaken. Each eligible nurse and midwife was provided with a unique identifier, called the voting registration number (VRN), to use when accessing the electronic voting system.
Nominations opened on the 27 August 2012 and closed on the 14 September 2012. There were a total of thirty-six candidates declared eligible and elections were held in each of the eight categories. The ballot opened at 9.00 a.m. on the 19September 2012 and closed at 4.00 p.m. on the 1October 2012. The names of the eight successful candidates elected to the new Board were confirmed to the Minister for Health on 1 October 2012:
Category 1 (General Nursing) Madeline Spiers
Category 2 (Children’s Nursing) Linda Phelan
Category 3 (Psychiatric Nursing) John Murray
Category 4 (Intellectual Disability Nursing) Noel Giblin
Category 5 (Midwifery) Sinead Cleary
Category 6 (Public Health Nursing) Essene Cassidy
Category 7 (Nursing and Midwifery Education) Mary Connor
Category 8 (Care of Older Persons) Mary Barrett.
An Bord Altranais is the first regulator to hold an election using electronic voting (e-voting) and great care was taken in developing the process to ensure security and the integrity of the ballot. A comments section was designed into the e-voting system and as part of the review and evaluation process following the election we will now examine all of the feedback that we received in the course of the election. This review will serve a number of purposes. It will inform our processes moving forward and assist us in providing a better service to nurses and midwives, particularly in the streamlining and improvement of our e-voting system. We will publish the report of our review on-line once it is completed. If you would like to provide further feedback on the election process please email us at election@nursingboard.ie
Many thanks to all those nurses and midwives who participated in the election, to those who put themselves forward as candidates and to those who voted. We would like to congratulate those elected members of the Board. Together with a further three registered nurses or midwives to be appointed, these people are your representatives on the Board and will represent your views, concerns and professional expertise in all matters of Board business, ensuring that the Board’s remit to enhance public protection is met through informed decision making.
The Minister for Health will now appoint all 23 members of the Board to include the eight elected members of the Board and another Commencement Order will be published by the Minister to allow the Board to take office and to commence implementation of the Nurses and Midwives Act, 2012.
