Of course, I heard the discussion that went on across the House last evening between the Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in regard to this suggestion. The time available for submitting amendments to this Bill was very short. I think the Bill will be improved by this amendment, which is, substantially, an agreed one.
I would like to see on this committee some people who are outside the law It was agreed last night that the Chief Justice has no contact with district justices. The President of the High Court has very little contact with them. There is this objection to the Attorney-General being on the committee—that the Attorney-General directs prosecutions. Prosecutions before district justices are taken in the name of the Attorney-General. While I believe that any person who would occupy the position of Attorney-General would be an honourable person and would carry out this function, which is a semijudicial one, in the same correct way as he would carry out any other function, there is the danger that if a prosecution or certain prosecutions were initiated by the Attorney-General before a district justice in the last year of his service, the district justice might consider that the fact of his application going before a committee consisting of three people, including the Attorney-General, it might unconsciously influence his decision in the case. For that reason, I, personally, would prefer if the Attorney-General was not a member of this committee.
I think it would be a wise thing—it cannot be done now unless the Minister agrees, though probably it can be done in the Seanad—if there were laymen of standing on a committee of this kind. I think there ought to be. My suggestion would be, if there had been an opportunity to put down an amendment, to include the president of the Trade Union Congress and the president of the Congress of Irish Unions, those two men to represent the ordinary people of the country as members of this committee. I do not think this is just a humorous matter at all. I think that the ordinary people have, and ought to have, some say in important matters of this kind. I am perfectly certain that the two people I suggest would carry out their functions in a responsible way, and that my suggestion, if acted on, would give greater confidence in this committee. As I say, I am not in a position to move an amendment now, unless the Minister agrees to it. It may be that some person will move such an amendment in the Seanad.
I know that all stages of this Bill have been promised to the Minister to-day. I take it that he will take the Bill to-day as it is, and there is nothing that I can do about it. I raise these two points now, the first with regard to the Attorney-General and the second, that the committee could be enlarged by the two individuals I have mentioned, or by some other two people who would not be lawyers.