Amendments Nos. 25 to 44, inclusive, are related. Amendment No. 43 is consequential on amendment No. 6, amendment No. 27 is consequential on amendment No. 8, amendments Nos. 28 and 44 are consequential on amendment No. 13, amendment No. 29 is consequential on amendment No. 15, amendments Nos. 32 to 44, inclusive, are physical alternatives to amendment No. 29 and amendment No. 40 is a physical alternative to amendment No. 39. Amendments Nos. 25 to 44, inclusive, will be discussed together. I call Deputy Clare Daly.
Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed)
Amendment No. 24 not moved.
I move amendment No. 25:
In page 12, line 25, to delete “each of subsections (2) and” and substitute “subsection”.
There might be an error in those two because if memory serves me correctly, our amendments Nos. 25 and 26 are consequential on our proposal that the chairman would be elected by the members of the commission, rather than appointed by the Public Appointments Service, PAS, and given that the proposal has fallen, we will probably have to withdraw these amendments. While that is something on which the Ceann Comhairle can adjudicate when he has a minute, I do not think they can be pushed at the moment. I am not sure if they can be tabled now although we would be happy if they could.
I am sorry that Deputy O'Callaghan's amendment No. 24, which is also consequential on his amendment No. 6, cannot be moved now either. This is key because that was to get rid of the Public Appointments Service as the body to appoint lay members and he was proposing that it be replaced with a system whereby lay members would be nominated by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the Free Legal Advice Centres, the Citizens Information Board and so on. We had something similar on Committee Stage. While that cannot be moved, the discussion and the problems with the Public Appointments Service have to be re-echoed. It is not ideal. It is unsatisfactory that the PAS has been given the role of appointing the lay members. There is huge potential for that in indirectly rechannelling ministerial influence through the PAS. It is also the case, and the point was well made on Committee Stage, that the type of expertise that was being sought for commission members came from the commerce, business or senior civil servant type of background, which could be far more susceptible to political influence and far more connected to the political classes, than any members of the Judiciary in many instances. What we would get would really be an optical replacement of, mar dhea, lay people but which would be just as susceptible to political influence as any other body. In that sense, it is really regrettable that those amendments cannot be tabled.
I refer to Sinn Féin's amendment No. 29. It seeks to change the criteria by which PAS selects lay members. It is broadly similar to what is in the Bill already, with the key difference that it proposes a diversity and social inclusion appointment category. It is more complicated to involve the PAS. I note a technical problem with it, in that it is called "the public appointments commission". I do not know if that will be a problem with it going further but the PAS is being maintained with a list of nominating bodies called the "Diversity and Social Inclusion panel". Those bodies would nominate three of the lay members of the commission. The bodies on the panel would have to demonstrate their relevance to the objectives of diversity outlined in amendment No. 3 or on the nine grounds in the Employment Equality Acts. It is a very novel and good idea, even though it is a little complicated. I am willing to forfeit its complexity in deference to the important contribution it could potentially make towards encouraging and expanding diversity. In light of some earlier amendments that were not moved, it is important that this amendment would be moved and consequently, we will be supporting that Sinn Féin amendment No. 29.
Although it is complex, it would, as I said, add to the Bill.
Amendment No. 38 is quite important as well. We will certainly be pushing it, particularly if Sinn Féin's amendment No. 29 does not pass. We are proposing to delete the provision that lay members of the commission would have knowledge or experience of processes and procedures for making appointments to public office or to senior positions in public or private sectors organisations. In other words, it is a kind of automatic pass on to the commission for retired senior civil servants. It is not what the intent behind the legislation was when we spoke of appointing lay people; we were talking about people who reflect the most diverse aspects of Irish society.
Amendment No. 40 is in this group and it is still in order. It is our tidying-up measure relating to an amendment we successfully tabled on Committee Stage providing that one of the areas of knowledge or experience that commission members should have is of "civil society, trade union activity and academia". Our tidying amendment would change this to "or academia" as our original amendment could have had the consequence that one of the criteria for the appointment of lay members is to have knowledge in all three areas, which was not envisaged. This amendment makes it clear it would be one or the other.
Government amendment No. 41 reinserts "board membership and corporate governance" as one of the skills the lay members must possess. We got rid of this on Committee Stage and it is incredibly insulting to committee members that the Minister would try to reintroduce this now. There were incredibly strong arguments made as to why this should not be the case if we are to reflect a more diverse and real sort of background. It is regrettable that the Minister is sneaking it back in here. We will strongly oppose that.
Amendment No. 42 is a Government tidying-up measure in respect of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. As we have already voted to accept a member in other parts of the Bill, the amendment is absolutely fine.
The other amendments in this group are out of order. I believe they were all tabled by Deputies O'Callaghan and Wallace and myself, although I am not completely sure. We had much discussion on Committee Stage on this and we feel strongly that there must be a check on the role of the Public Appointments Service in appointing lay people. Either our amendment No. 38 or, preferably, Sinn Féin's amendment No. 29 should be part of that, although only if linked with the rejection of amendment No. 41. That amendment is trying to prescribe the type of lay person we are to get, which if the amendment is accepted will not be diverse at all.
We are debating a series of amendments proposing to amend section 12, which deals with the recommendation of lay persons for appointment as members of the commission or as chairperson of the commission. It is important to say at the outset that currently we do not know how many people we are talking about. Under the amendment passed by the House last night, there are to be 13 members of the commission. We know that five will be judges and three others will be lawyers, so I assume we are talking about having five laypersons. However, one of the downsides of the Government running with the legislation in the way it has is that we know it will try to increase the number when the Bill gets to Seanad Éireann. We really do not know how many members will serve on the commission. We know the Government wants a commission of 17 people but if there are to be eight from the Judiciary or legal profession, the Government will need to appoint nine lay people on to this commission. It is important to point out these people cannot be members of the legal profession or retired judges, for example. One would think it would be useful to have a retired judge on a commission to advise on the appointment of judges. It could be somebody such as Mrs. Justice Catherine McGuinness, who would be an excellent choice for the commission, or Ms Justice Mary Laffoy. They are not allowed on it because they have been "contaminated", as the Government sees it, by previously being a member of the Judiciary. It is easy for us in the House to try to put together legislation that will put lay people on this commission but we must understand and assess whether the section drafted and proposed by the Government would be feasible in terms of attracting individuals as lay members of this commission.
We are dealing with a batch of 20 amendments, from amendment No. 25 to amendment No. 44, inclusive. Like Deputy Clare Daly, I would like clarity on her amendments Nos. 25 and 26. It is unlikely that they can be moved. However, I am conscious that the Ceann Comhairle gave a very detailed written ruling to the House when Report Stage resumed. Much consideration has gone into it and there is no indication that amendments Nos. 25 and 26 are not appropriate to be moved. If they are not on his list, I suspect we will have to move them. I will be supporting amendments Nos. 25 and 26.
We know that amendments Nos. 27 and 28 have been ruled out of order. Amendment No. 28 has the objective of having the members of the commission elect their own chairperson. This was contained in my amendment No. 6, which was defeated by the House, and it is a very good idea that the commission should be able to elect its own chairperson. How will we distinguish as to who will be the appropriate lay person to be nominated by the Public Appointments Service as the chairperson? I do not know how those different characteristics will be assessed to determine a chairperson. It is worth pointing out that in the North there is an equivalent body that makes recommendations to government on the appointment of judges in Northern Ireland. The chairperson of that body is a judge. For the past 23 years, the chairperson of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board has been the Chief Justice. For some reason a decision was made by the Government that it had to have what it referred to as a lay chairman; in effect, they want somebody who is not a judge or lawyer to be the chairperson.
I have never got an answer to the question of what is the public policy benefit in having a person who is not a member of the Judiciary or a lawyer - it should be a member of the Judiciary instead of a lawyer - as the chairperson. I do not believe in deference to any group in society but if the Taoiseach was asked to serve on a committee but he would not be allowed to chair it, there would be outrage. That would arise because the Taoiseach is the head of the Executive branch and it would be inappropriate for him to be on a committee but not chair it. Similarly, if this House set up a committee to deal with procedures in the House and the Ceann Comhairle was a member, he would end up as chairman. I do not know if there is a committee in this House of which the Ceann Comhairle could not be the chairman. I do not know why the Government insists that the Chief Justice, who will be on the commission, should not chair it.
This seems again to be an obsession of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to the effect that the commission cannot be chaired by a judge. It is the wrong decision. The person on the board with most insight into what it takes to be a judge would be a judge. There is nothing controversial about that. I mentioned last night that if a panel was to interview people to pick the next editor of a national newspaper, surely we would want people chairing the panel who would understand newspapers and what it is to be an effective editor of a newspaper. For some reason, it is presented in this debate as though the last thing we should have is the Chief Justice chairing this commission.
Amendment No. 29 is from Sinn Féin and I do not know if it is being pursued. I do not want to put Deputy Ó Laoghhaire on the spot. I am conscious that it refers to general lay appointments and the diversity and social inclusion appointments. We debated Sinn Féin's amendment last week.
That amendment was withdrawn by Sinn Féin on the basis that the diversity and social inclusion appointments had the effect of removing the provision in the Bill which states that there had to be proficiency in the Irish language within the courts. That is an amendment I put down, and I know Deputy Ó Laoghaire supported it on Committee Stage, but I am not sure whether amendment No. 29 is being pursued. If it is, I will reassess it, but perhaps Deputy Ó Laoghaire could address us on that, if he gets the chance, to let us know if the amendment is going ahead.
The remainder of the amendments are minor consequential amendments that seek to insert the word "lay". I will support amendment No. 30 which is solely in the name of Deputy Daly. I will support the other amendments which are in the name of both Deputy Daly and the Minister. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about amendment No. 41, which provides that the people on the commission would have knowledge of board membership and corporate governance. What does that mean? Are we going to have the great and the good and the same people against whom the Minister, Deputy Ross, used to rail for years as being the insiders in Irish society? Is he now going to allow the insiders in Irish boardrooms to pick one of the most important public offices in the country?
To follow on from what Deputy O'Callaghan said, to press the amendment would have the effect, as would the previous related amendment, of doing away with the Irish language qualification or the desirability for proficiency in the Irish language. I will ensure that one of our Senators resubmits the amendment in the Seanad because it is a good model, and I appreciate Deputy Daly's comments in this regard. I ask the Minister to consider the model. As I said, it will be retabled in the Seanad. It is based on the premise we discussed at length on Committee Stage that there is scope to change the kind of people, to include lay people, we have on the board. We have lay people on many public boards, but very often they are drawn from people who might have come from particular circles and who might have been involved in particular parts of the public service and so on. All these people have a significant contribution to make, no doubt about it, but what we want to achieve is a greater level of diversity.
The intention is to have a split between three who would be appointed from the traditional process and three who would be appointed through a diversity and social inclusion panel. That panel would have to be nominated from organisations which are on a register maintained by the judicial appointments commission, and they would have to advance the objectives of diversity and social inclusion. I will not push that on this occasion but I will ensure it is returned to in the Seanad. That is amendment No. 29.
Regarding some of the other amendments in this group, I am satisfied that the chair is being kept, as is proposed currently. I note that there are lay chairs both in Scotland and in England and Wales. It is not unheard of by any manner of means. I support amendment No. 40, which I believe will likely pass. I do not see any reason for it not to. I also support amendment No. 38, tabled by Deputies Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, which would delete lines 39 and 40. It makes sense to remove that criterion. That experience is unnecessary for serving on this board. Further to what I said earlier, it is important that people come from a broad spread of backgrounds. It need not be people who just have managerial experience or experience of managing big bodies or anything like that. I do not think it is a necessary qualification for someone serving on a body that appoints judges. Therefore, I will support amendment No. 38 also.
There have been quite a number of calls from colleagues on this side of the House for the Minister and the Fine Gael Party to consider simply withdrawing this Bill. There are a number of reasons for this, one of which is the Attorney General's advice, which has been quoted, that the Bill is a dog's dinner. The events of last night in this House have very much contributed to that atmosphere surrounding this Bill. I think what many people are deeply concerned about is the unholy alliance that the Government has built up with Sinn Féin in respect of this Bill and our Judiciary. If we want to see the motivations of the Sinn Féin Party in coming on board with the Government in respect of this Bill, we need only consider what Deputy Ó Snodaigh said last night in this House about the Special Criminal Court. It sent a chill down my spine and I suspect it sent a chill down the spines of many ordinary decent Irish citizens. Deputy Ó Snodaigh stated:
I listened to the contributions and responses to what I had said earlier. If anybody wants a history of the anti-republican bias of judges in the Special Criminal Court, I have no problem at all.
He went on to say:
I will not necessarily go into it here. [He can go ahead and do so if he wishes. We would certainly be interested in hearing directly what Sinn Féin's views are.] It is not just about anti-republicanism and judges falling asleep on the Bench or a history of abuse to some of the people before them in that court. It is also in other courts.
That is Sinn Féin's motivation in supporting this Bill. It wants in some way perhaps to get revenge or some influence on the courts system.
A number of years ago, when there was controversy about Sinn Féin's position on the Special Criminal Court, a solicitor from Cork, Mr. Jim Brooks, wrote to the Irish Examiner. He gave a description of the IRA intimidation of Special Criminal Court judges. I will read part of it into the record. It was published in the Irish Examiner on 14 February 2016:
Dear Editor,
In the light of the controversy surrounding the Special Criminal Court I thought the following story might be of interest to you and/or your readers. At the height of the "troubles" I was in Dublin on legal business and I met one of the sitting Judges on the Special Criminal Court. He had been recently appointed and he recounted the following story to me. On the eve of his journey to Dublin to hear his first case he received a phone-call at home. The case involved an IRA Defendant and the phone-call went like this.
Caller: Judge you will be hearing a case tomorrow and we would remind you that it would be in your best interests to deliver a Judgment favourable to the Defendant.
The Judge put the phone down. The Judge received a second call seconds later.
Caller: Judge please don't put the phone down. We know all about your family.
The Judge cut him off by putting the phone down. Third call.
Caller: Judge we know you have a young family. We know where they go to School and we know lots about them.
The Judge put the phone down. The phone rang immediately again.
Caller: Judge just to remind you that we know a lot about you and you might like to know that your Bathroom window is open.
The Judge put the phone down, checked his Bathroom and found yes the window was open.
The Judge was not intimidated.
The letter goes on and is signed by Mr. Jim Brooks, a solicitor in Clonakilty. It is chilling to be aware of such instances that are reported and of the connections that members of the Sinn Féin Party and current Deputies have with persons who have been convicted before the Special Criminal Court. Deputy Ó Snodaigh's comments last night and his alliance with the Minister on the appointment of judges send shivers down our spines. I appeal to the Minister to use his better judgment and collapse this enterprise at once and tell the Minister, Deputy Ross, to worry about the bus system and the train system, forget about this and come back to us with reasonable proposals that can ensure the independence of our Judiciary is protected and enhanced, as it should be under our Constitution, in order that people can have confidence going before its system. I fear that, with Sinn Féin lining up with the Minister, the public will have less confidence in the Judiciary, in the judicial system, and that in fact it would be the opposite of what the Government intends.
As Deputy Barrett very wisely said yesterday, this really is an abdication of responsibility on the part of the Government. It is also an abdication of Fine Gael's self-described reputation as the party of law and order. All I can do is lay the facts before the Minister. This is who he is lining up with on the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill. If he is satisfied with that, if his party is satisfied with that, go ahead, but I do not believe Fine Gael's voters will forgive it.
Deputies Clare Daly and Jim O'Callaghan have gone through the individual amendments. My name is attached to some of them. At the heart of this is the so-called "lay versus law" dimension about which we seem so perplexed.
I am totally in favour of a more broadly representative section having a say in how judges are appointed. However, there is considerable capacity for political influence being exerted over the lay members who are appointed to this commission. It could be done in a fair way but equally it might not. They may be of a particular political persuasion and might give a political dimension to how the judges are selected.
It is more than likely that there will be five judges on the commission. Our proposal was also for five. The Public Appointments Service are selected by Government, the Public Appointments Service select lay members and the Minister has an option after three years to reappoint them for a further three. Do I think that we might have a better chance of getting a non-political, neutral position from a judge that has risen through the ranks and proved his or her self to be exceptionally good at their job - otherwise they would not have risen up through the ranks - that the layman will have a less political dimension and will be less political in their selection process than the judge? I am afraid that I do not. I am very wary of who will end up on it.
Yesterday I asked the Minister where the lack of trust for the legal profession came from. We all know that not every judge is great, but not every teacher is great nor is every builder; there is good and bad everywhere. However, behind the Bill a lack of trust is being displayed towards the Judiciary and I do not accept it. We have been through all this in the Select Committee on Justice and Equality. My understanding of the principal reason behind reforming how we appoint judges was that we should make the process less political and that we should have less political say over what judges are appointed. We know that there has been political influence over the years. However, the judges there bear a huge responsibility in the spotlight. Take a judge who came from Fianna Fáil stock, for instance. Is it likely that after being a judge for some 15 or 20 years, he or she will automatically favour a Fianna Fáil candidate over another? I am not convinced he or she will. The Minister has not explained why the Bill has that dimension running through it, where it is as though we do not really trust the Judiciary.
We had put down several amendments on whether there ought to be a lay chair. I do not agree with Public Appointments Service having an elected chair. We favoured the commission that is being set up being the body to elect the chair. It is rational in any area of life that if a committee is formed, it makes such a decision, having sat around and discussed who among the members will make the best chair. I do not believe that giving the Public Appointments Service the power to elect a lay chair, and making it compulsory that the chair is lay, can be defended. It does not make sense. I am not hung up about whether the chair is lay or legal, I think it should be either and that it should be for the committee itself to appoint that person.
Our big fear, which we expressed at the committee, was for people to be drawn in from sections of society that would not normally get a look in in the area of appointing judges. We put down amendment No. 38 which seeks to remove the line regarding, "processes and procedures for making appointments to public office or to senior positions in public or private sector organisations". As Deputy O'Callaghan said, more often than not, these people are the insiders in society. They are generally the people from an influential and powerful background. We do not think that these are the people we seek for our reformed judicial appointments system. We want people from a broad section of society and to give people who did not have a look in up to now a chance.
People who are well up in the system are almost sure to have a political inclination which defeats the whole purpose.
It is ironic that among some of the amendments being discussed we are missing one very important point. We have discussed lay people and their role while at the same time we do not know how many people we are talking about. Is it 13, 17, or what is the figure going to be? That is one of the fundamental issues that we must be clear on, but we have no clarity whatsoever. We are discussing amendments that pertain to their roles while not knowing how many people we are talking about.
I was looking at amendment No. 38. One thing that bothers me greatly is experience. It is the one thing in life that one cannot buy. No matter what one's job or role is or what function one performs in life, any person who is at something longer than somebody else and who has gone through life's trials and tribulations for a longer time than someone else will have to know more than the other person. When we talk about putting lay people into positions such as we are now, we have to really stand back and consider what we are trying to achieve. It is like what happened many years ago when some people decided the abolition of the dual mandate in local authorities was a good idea. They actually drained many local authorities of years of political experience in one day when they removed Members of the Oireachtas. Looking back, it was not a very smart thing to do. The people who did it will be remembered for a long time for scoring own goals and shooting their own parties in their two feet.
These amendments are like a race to the bottom. Why should we not have retired judges? Why should we not have people who worked in the Judiciary for all their careers? Why should they not be on a commission? Why should we not use their years of practical experience? Sometimes people might not be all that delighted with judges' decisions but we must respect their decisions and the methods for coming to their conclusions nevertheless. Over the years, I have had the privilege of knowing District Court judges who gave years of sterling service and had a wealth of practical common sense experience under their belts.
Those types of people would have an awful lot to offer when it comes to deciding on the very important decisions which need to be taken. Obviously I am not saying anything against lay people but it comes back to the point I was just getting at which was about political and judicial experience. If nothing else, who is a better driver, somebody who is doing 1,000 miles a month or somebody who is doing 10,000 miles a month? Is it not obvious that the more experience one has, the better one will be in the function or the role one is to perform?
The Minister is again getting it from many people here tonight that this is a time for reflection. He and his colleagues should really stand back and look at the proceedings which have gone on here and think about what they are trying to do. We are not asking the Minister to collapse the Government. That would not be necessary. However, even at this late stage, there is time for the Minister to use his experience and to say that this is a nonsense. What the Minister and the Government are trying to do with this commission is actually nonsense. The Bill and the way it has proceeded in the last 48 hours has proven nothing more than farcical.
Hearing some of the contributions, it seems to me that the hastily scrabbled together deal certainly leaves an awful lot to be desired. I heard today from people around the country who were watching the proceedings, including some from the Minister's own party, and many of them did not realise a deal had been made. Indeed the former Ceann Comhairle announced here last night that he knew nothing of it and he is a paid up member of the Minister's party. He did not know anything about the deal that the Minister and his colleagues in Cabinet had made with Sinn Féin. Even he did not know about it. That is certainly treating members of the Minister's own parliamentary party with contempt in my opinion.
We live in a democratic society. If the Minister's parliamentary party is cutting side deals to try to get to where it wants to go, surely to God it should have informed its own members rather than foisting it upon them in the way it did. Leaving Deputies such as Deputy Seán Barrett, who came in here last night having to say that he did not know what deal had been done because he had been out of the country on parliamentary business for a few days, in the lurch leaves an awful lot to be desired.
If the Minister was to do the proper thing by himself, by the Government and, most importantly of all, by the people he was elected to serve, he would weigh this whole situation up and decide what he has to gain and what he has to lose. The credibility of what the Government is trying to do, as opposed to the Minister's personal credibility, lies in tatters tonight because of the events that have unfolded. It is never too late to say we are wrong, we have made a mistake and we are going to pull this Bill. The Minister should remember that Fianna Fáil keeps the Government in its position. It is not happy at the moment. I do not see why the Government should consider sinking itself just to pacify the one person who wants to drive this forward.
We have gone past the stage at which we had to abandon proceedings last night. We have come back and the Ceann Comhairle has made a ruling. We are where we are but we are going around in circles. We are sending the Bill to the Seanad and expecting it to fix our problems. I know it will come back on Committee Stage here in the House but clearly we are sending out conflicting messages. One basic flaw is that we do not know whether there are going to be 13 members on this so-called board or 17 as the Minister, Deputy Ross, had been looking for.
I do not know where the Minister is. I have called on him several times. He was here for the votes and he cleared out again like the flight of the earls. He was gone like a flash. Perhaps the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, is afraid of contagion and does not want Deputy Ross near. I do not know what is going on but tá sé as láthair arís. He did not have the you-know-what to come in and marshal his own Bill, to be here for support or to be here to look at us or to make body language, gestures or whatever at us if he would not talk. He could write and talk all he wanted for decades in the newspapers and could solve everything, but now we have this Bill.
This Bill changes little and does not address any real problem. That is my opinion. There is a real need for the legal profession to be reformed. I was in a technical group with him for five years before this present incarnation of the Government, and Deputy Ross had all kinds of ideas about what he could do and what he would not do. To be unfair to myself, jakers I believed him. I thought he was a bit of a whizz-kid and that he had the knowledge and expertise. I thought that he had friends in legal places, not including Deputy O'Callaghan, who would not have been here at that time, and that he knew what he was talking about. It now looks like he knew nothing about what he was talking about and was only making it up. He was a fake. It was fake news. He was here before President Trump ever came around. He had the fake news and the fake dreams. It was all fake. The real judicial problem is controlling the power of the King's Inns. I mean no disrespect to my learned friend from the King's Inns. I think Deputy Thomas Byrne might have gone through it as well. I have no problem with that. I have never been over there, I just look at it in awe.
I was in Blackhall Place.
I am sorry. Yes, the Law Society in Blackhall Place also contributes to the problem. Deputy Byrne was ahead of me. I was coming to that. He should give me a chance. I might talk fast-----
Is this in the Bill?
Of course. It is all part of the reform of judicial services according to the infallible, inevitable, intolerable Minister, Deputy Ross. Both premises and organisations should be taken over by the State. They should be taken into public ownership and given to DIT, which is being centralised nearby at Grangegorman and is in need of extra premises. DIT is properly accountable to the State and its Legislature and it would be fitting for the Grangegorman campus to be enhanced by the inclusion of King's Inns and Blackhall Place in the context of both being brought under appropriate democratic control. It might be going somewhere then.
We can have all the semantics we like here. We can have all the suggestions, motions, potions and God knows what else, but that is what we really should be doing. We should be reining in these two institutions which are a hangover from the British state and which are really not accountable to anyone. They are not accountable to this House or to anybody else. That is very serious. That is the kind of issue that should be in the Bill, not what the Minister is talking about.
As I have said, DIT is properly accountable. I specify DIT because it is properly accountable but is also in that location near those premises. Universities and institutes of technology are accountable to the House through the Ministers and through legislation. We might then get some notice or response from the learned ladies and gentlemen in those institutions: Blackhall Place and King's Inns. I mean that. If the Bill was meaningful or if the Minister was interested he would have done that. He had the opportunity tonight to take back this Bill, to go that direction and to include that proposal or at least to discuss it with the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality or ourselves. He could at least have talked to us about it.
Legal education and the legal system would be removed from the elitist clutches of the two branches of the legal profession and placed in the properly accountable hands of third level institutions, such as universities, which are well capable of managing the task. In those universities we have boards, CEOs and people who are accountable and who can be brought before the Committee of Public Accounts. When do we ever see any of these learned institutions brought before any committee? We have certain people who were brought in before two committees that were fighting over which would get the first chaw at them. Deputy Alan Kelly was in there like a werewolf guffawing at people and wanting them in. When are these people going to come before any committees? When are they going to be in any way accountable to this House or in any way held responsible for any of the situations down there? We had the whole situation of justice delayed.
They huffed and they puffed and they got a whole new appeals court, which I campaigned against and opposed, but we have seen little improvement. We saw some frantic action a few weeks ago - perhaps six weeks ago - to deal with cases. There were 150 per week, I believe. Other than that, people are waiting three to seven years for their cases to be heard. Justice delayed is justice denied. If the Minister, Deputy Ross, were serious, he would have brought in these people under a single professional institution and cut out all the pandering and elitism in the institutions in question. To the best of my knowledge, and unless someone can tell me otherwise, Dublin City Council maintains the area. The institutions do not even have to pay to cut the grass themselves. The legal practitioners are accorded an elite status as people we must look up to. I am not saying we should look down on them but we are supposed to look up to them and are expected to bow to them in their wigs and everything else. I am not against any of them, for that matter, but am saying the whole institution leads to elitism and a select culture. We are empowering them to go on. In this Legislature it is our duty, and the Minister's, to address this. The Minister was so ambitious and so anxious to reform the judicial system. Why start with the judicial system? Why not start with the legal profession? Many of those in that profession eventually become judges. I am not commenting on their fitness to be judges. The Government should start at the bottom and change the culture. First, it should examine the two institutions and have them shut down and placed under the auspices of one of the universities or some other body. I am not saying where but I am just suggesting DIT as it is located close to the two institutions. This is where the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross, should have started if he had been really interested. He did not. He just came in here for media soundbites based on what he said he would do and the great man he was. Now he cannot be found. Tá sé as láthair arís. He is probably watching us on the television. If he is, I salute him and say hello to him, but why can he not come in here and acknowledge we are debating his mess, not that of the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Charlie Flanagan?
I am glad to have the opportunity to talk about this serious matter. The way things are going, we should not be talking at all. This Bill is about appointing people with knowledge to select judges, on whom we rely to mete out justice and give people a fair and balanced hearing. The Judicial Appointments Advisory Board comprises the Chief Justice, who is the chairman, the President of the Court of Appeal, the President of the High Court, the President of the Circuit Court, the President of the District Court, the Attorney General, a practising barrister nominated by the Council of the Bar of Ireland, a practising solicitor nominated by the Law Society of Ireland, and no more than three persons appointed by the Minister for Justice and Equality. It is proposed that the chairman of the commission be a lay person. Also to be included are the Chief Justice and the President of the High Court. At the end of the list is a reference to six lay members selected by the Public Appointments Service. The service must ensure a lay person will not be recommended for appointment as chairperson of the commission unless it is satisfied that he or she is a fit and proper person to be so appointed and is suitable for appointment having due regard to "his or her having demonstrated experience of effective board management and corporate governance". Who is going to check out all that? Why would someone in that capacity have gained as much knowledge as a judge, who would have operated as a solicitor or barrister before becoming a District Court judge or Circuit Court judge? The Public Appointments Service must also be satisfied as to "his or her having such experience, qualifications, training or expertise as is appropriate having regard to the functions of the Commission" and to "the desirability that he or she has knowledge of-----
We are not reading the Bill; we are dealing with amendments.
Yes, but this is about changing the system we have and purporting that what is being brought forward is better than it. The person appointed is supposed to have knowledge or experience of the operation of the courts. Who could have more knowledge than a judge or solicitor?
Section 12 refers to the provision of supports to persons who are victims of crime or to users of the services provided by the courts. Again, who could know more about this than the judges, solicitors or barristers?
Section 12 refers to "processes and procedures for making appointments to public office or to senior positions in public or private sector organisations". Who is going to decide who these people are? For over 100 years we had a system that served the country well. Why is it that we are changing it now because of the wishes of one man who wrote so much in the newspapers and whose idea it was that Governments and Ministers should not appoint judges anymore? Is it because of that? Is that why we are going to wreck the perfect justice system we have had for 100 years and throw it out the window? Is it just to satisfy one man and ensure his support for the Government? Surely nothing could be more ridiculous.
Section 12(4) states the Public Appointments Service shall ensure that a lay person is recommended under subsection (2) for appointment as chairperson only if it is satisfied that the person is a fit and proper person to be so appointed and is suitable for appointment by reason of the person possessing such experience, qualifications, training or expertise as is appropriate having regard to the functions of the commission. Why are we doing this? Why is the Government allowing this to happen when it knows this is the most ridiculous Bill that has ever come before the House, in my time anyway? Members who are here longer than I am will say the very same thing.
The Public Appointments Service is advised that the general scheme of the Bill contained a provision to the effect that, in appointing lay members to the commission, the Minister must have regard to the objective of having gender balance. That is fine but I believe knowledge and experience should come before deciding whether the person should be a man or woman. I have no objection to women but surely it should come down to experience, not just gender balance. It is absolutely ridiculous.
The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, has just been replaced in the Chamber by the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, who is also part of the Government. They are succumbing to the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Shane Ross, to ensure his support for the Government. It does not matter whether it is a good or bad Bill but, since it is the Bill of the latter Minister, the Government must support it. What is going on is ridiculous. I appeal to the Government to address this. In light of what happened last night, we do not know whether the commission will have 13 members or 17. We are talking in a vacuum.
However, that is costing the taxpayers and I ask the Minister to do the proper thing and withdraw the Bill sooner rather than later because it will finish up in the courts. If the Bill ever becomes law, it will not happen for years when there will be a different Administration in this Chamber.
I welcome the opportunity to speak to the amendments on the appointment of a chairperson and how the ordinary members will be appointed. The first thing that has to be cleared up is the fiasco that happened here last night when we did not know whether we were talking about 13 or 17 members. As a result of some sweetheart deals being done that seem to be getting even cosier in recent months, we have a Bill now that is neither here nor there. It is probably legally unsafe. It was voted on here last night. It will need a good deal of teasing out, although I suppose the cartels in the Seanad will work again to get it passed. Sooner or later, however, the day of reckoning will come, the Bill will not be right but people will be appointed.
It should be noted that much of what judges have to work with around the country has been legislated on by Members in this House. They have guidelines on certain sentences and when they are criticised for being lenient, perhaps we should look at ourselves to see if we have given them too much scope in that regard. That is one area that needs to be examined.
I have a fear that these so-called lay people on the commission will be retired county managers. To me, lay people are ordinary people. They are not people who have been in cosy jobs all their lives who move on when they retire to another bit of an income. As a State, we seem to have a woeful habit of doing things like that.
I am not a lawyer. I never claimed to be one but, in fairness, the likes of Deputy Jim O'Callaghan would have a vast knowledge of the workings of this area and because of what he has gone through over the years in terms of experience, his views should be taken on board because a government is not able to push through every measure. It has to listen to others to make something better but I worry about the Minister, Deputy Ross, who is like the rabbit in the burrow. He is probably looking at the monitor in his office at the moment. He did not show up here at all. This is a measure to appease him in terms of getting a Bill through the Houses. It is to keep him quiet and keep the Government together for another few months but it is not doing it right. Ironically, there have been more judges appointed using the old method in the past two years than ever before even though the Minister's column in the newspapers would lead one to believe the position was much different. Once again, we are speaking out of both sides of our mouths.
We need transparency and to make sure that judges are appointed properly. Everyone agrees with that but we need to make sure also that the educational side of it is not a cartel set up. We must be very clear that the Judiciary must be separate. They have to make their own decisions separate from everything else.
When we look at appointments, and I am not just talking about the Judiciary, it was never someone farming in County Galway, County Kilkenny or elsewhere who got appointed. It was always a person in some public job. In terms of the process, a list is put before the Minister but he or she is nearly told what to do. To be honest, they are told what to pick. I do not see how we can make things better that way.
As legislators, we need to make sure that we bring in something like a bill of quantum to provide guidelines on insurance cases. In terms of sentencing, day in, day out we hear about a judge who gave someone bail. However, that is not the judge's fault because as we have found out, under international law, if a judge does not give legal aid he or she is in trouble. They can be done for miscarriage of justice.
The Attorney General has expressed his views on the Bill, which are alarming. The Attorney General is the Attorney General to the Government and everyone in that situation should be singing off the one hymn sheet. It is alarming that even though the Attorney General described the Bill in a few different ways some months ago, we are still powering ahead with it. The only reason I can see for doing that is to tick a little box that was a deal. It should not be about that. We can tick the box but we need to make sure we get the legislation right before we tick it. We must make sure that we take on board the views of Deputies here who have experience in the legal profession. I recognise that the Minister has a legal background but there are other people in the House who have vast experience in that regard. We need to make sure when we bring legislation before the House that it is right. We cannot have a repeat of the fiasco that happened here last night that, allegedly, will be sorted out in the Seanad. The Bill will then come back here and we will go around the merry-go-round again. That is not making progress or sending out the right signals. We need to get this Bill right and make sure that the appointment of people to the commission is done in a proper way and that the Judiciary is recognised as well.
I have spoken on this issue on many occasions. I again ask the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, to consider standing back on this issue. The nation is watching very closely and they saw the shambles that went on here last night. If his Government has its hand tied behind its back by the Minister, Deputy Ross, I plead with Sinn Féin to release the ties of the Fine Gael Ministers and TDs and call a halt to this mess. I know it is not a mess that Sinn Féin intended but it has happened and it is before the people at this time. From what I can see, and I have to be careful in what I say, the Minister, Deputy Ross, is holding the Government against its will on this issue. There is only one party that can call a halt to that and that is Sinn Féin. It can make him put this Bill in the bin, restart it and face the people. I referred earlier to a text the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, sent me following a vote in a previous debate in which he indicated his frustration that I did not support the Bill. I outlined my concerns to him at that very early stage and now they are justified because this is a complete mess. It is an embarrassment for our country and for our Government and anyone who is supporting it on this Bill.
In terms of whether it will be a 13 person or a 17 person commission appointed by the Government, we are back to square one. It is like a quango. Will it be a little job for the boys? Will we be sitting here in a couple of years from now saying that these appointments are questionable and asking whether it was Fine Gael or Sinn Féin and who supported it?
It is time for us to pull back. There is no doubt that there needs to be reform in some respects. On many occasions, I have raised the case of a gentleman in my constituency who, since 2005, has gone through the court process since 2005 and who has been treated extremely poorly. This man has endured a lot of ill health because of a case brought against him by a semi-State body that had plenty of money to do so. The bottom line is this man feels justified in his view that there was no court registrar on the day of the court case. I raised this case with the Minister, who is not here but who has heard me discuss it on the floor of the House previously. He is not to blame because he was not there. I fully accept that. However, I pleaded with him to work with this gentleman to find out whether there was a registrar and what procedure was used, regardless of the efforts made by this man to find out whether there was a registrar in the court because if there was none, it means the court proceedings were null and void on the day. Nobody to whom I have written in this Government can provide that man with a course of action - a road he can travel or a person to whom he can go to find this out. To me, it stinks to high heaven of a cover up because if there was honesty and transparency, which should exist in these situations, they would be able to say who the registrar was, when he or she was there and who was paid to come on the day but nobody is able to supply him with that information no matter how many times he has gone through the courts to try to resolve that.
We need to reform our judicial system but a 17 or 13-person commission is not the way forward. It is just another job for the boys. There has been discussion here about whether it will cost €1 million. It might only cost €500,000. That is a huge amount of money for people who are struggling. Members of the public watching the debate last night and tonight are not happy with the parties that continue to support this Bill, which is faltering all around them. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport is on a little ego trip. I would plead with the Minister to talk to each and every member of the Government and say that enough is enough and that it will not be part of this charade. It has definitely been found that there are major questions about it. There has been doubt among the public that there was an issue here and last night proved that there was. It is time to step back, govern decisively and not be led by somebody on an ego trip. It has put us in a very serious situation.
I do not know how many Deputies have spoken to the Government tonight. They have been very consistent about the way they have said this will go. They have pleaded with the Government to pull back but to date it has refused to do so. The body language of those opposite does not give me the impression that the Government really supports this. It is being carried along by the hand. It is a case of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport or the country. Sometimes democracy and standing by the people are far better than standing by a man on an ego trip. As we said earlier, he could write about the Minister in a few months' time and tear him to bits about what he did in this Bill, that Bill and the other Bill. Today, he is backing the Government but the pen is heavier than the sword and he will be back with the pen again fairly soon. I ask the Minister to listen to the public. There is an outcry. We are all human. Many mistakes have been made here along the way and last night proved that. The Government has an opportunity to overturn that and govern the way a Government should govern and not continue to support somebody who is fighting a losing battle on this issue.
I wish to point out that-----
The Deputy will get a chance to come back during the next round.
No, it is a different issue. This matter is so important that at this critical time, it is important to call a quorum.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted and 20 Members being present,
I pay tribute to the Committee on Justice and Equality, particularly Deputies Mick Wallace, Clare Daly and Jim O'Callaghan and the other Deputies who have worked very hard in analysing this Bill. I have not spoken on this Bill in recent times, although I spoke initially. What struck me when I looked at it in the first instance was that we were going down a very populist road based on populism rather than on evidence. I have the distinct feeling that the Minister has to be cringing given his own background and the very valid arguments made here by various Deputies. I feel for him and would not like to be in his position because there is no rational basis for the changes proposed here. When I went back to my first speech, I looked at the system that was in place. On many occasions, the members of the existing board made recommendations and called on the Government and, indeed, were instrumental in asking, for reform to stop political interference. This was the judges themselves appealing to successive Governments to stop the political interference. They put it slightly differently when they spoke about ensuring that there was less interference from the Government and more independence.
Here we are today. On top of no evidence for the change and no evidence for the cost of it - the Government cannot tell us what it will cost, although the existing board is doing it on a very tight budget - we are here today and we do not even know the make up of the commission in terms of numbers. Is 17 or 13? We do not know. We have a Minister pushing this for his own motives when I can think of many things he could be doing as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. On a personal basis, I like the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport but he should focus on the job he has. The Minister's job is to be courageous enough to say the Government cannot go through with this Bill in its current form and to embrace the amendments that have been put forward.
I have sat on the Committee of Public Accounts for just over two years. I must declare that I am a former member of the Bar. I will come back to many problems with the Bar but they certainly do not involve the Judiciary. Watching public body after public body and different organisations appear before the committee over the past two and a half years, which are experts in the language of corporate governance, procedures and processes and yet where there is no accountability, I cringe when I read that language.
Despite the limitations of the appointments system, the Judiciary has gone up in my estimation as courageous and independent-minded. I am delighted that the gender balance is improving all the time.
As Deputy Wallace has pointed out, that what is proposed in the Bill would allow for more political interference in the type of people appointed. As Deputy Fitzmaurice pointed out, we could get more local authority chief executives and men or women of that type. In this Bill we are not looking for people who can think independently, can stand up and say exactly what is wrong or right without fear or favour.
A substantial number of the problems with the legal profession relate to the limited access for people at point of entry and the scandalous cost of legal education in both branches - solicitors and barristers - something the Minister should look at.
The Minister should address the lack of guidelines on sentencing. We could take serious action to address the lack of support for victims in court who are left wandering around courthouses without assistance and are brought in simply as witnesses.
I briefly mentioned the Public Appointments Service. I have absolutely no confidence in section 12 which provides that the Public Appointments Service would also pick the chairperson. At the very least, good governance would dictate that the commission would determine who the chairperson would be on merit. I have an open mind as to who should be chair; my preference obviously would be for a member of the Judiciary given my experience. However, the chair should definitely be picked by the commission.
Judges' lack of training could be addressed very quickly. Access to courts is too costly for ordinary people. Members of the Judiciary have frequently said that the ordinary person without resources has very limited access to the courts. All of these are urgent issues the Government should address: they should have been addressed by the previous Government. Instead we are introducing the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill which is simply not fit for purpose. More than that, it is twisting language on its head. I am disappointed that Sinn Féin is colluding with this type of misuse of language. It is suggested that it will bring more openness and accountability into the appointment of judges when the very opposite will occur.
There is no analysis of what we have learnt from the weaknesses and faults of the existing system. Most of all we have utterly failed to recognise that the members of the Judiciary have been the most vocal in calling for changes to the existing system, not the Minister, Deputy Ross.
When the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, deals with the fact that he is most uncomfortable with what is being proposed, I ask him to take courage in his hands and to learn. He will make his mark in history if he stands up and says, "We've made a mistake, but we're going to stop and not persist with this mistake."
There is a certain sense of farce about this debate. Lay people looking in at what happens in the Dáil Chamber must be amused on the one side and saddened on the other side at what has gone on.
Certain people have been dealt a very poor hand by the Judiciary. I mentioned this earlier and I will give a bit more detail now. As we are debating a Bill dealing with reform that is needed in how we appoint judges - I take the previous speaker's point that members of the Judiciary also want reform and have asked for it - a woman, Yvonne Walsh, is in the Dóchas Centre having been sent there to purge her contempt of court. She has two children sitting their exams. She cannot purge her contempt because she does not have the power to do it. She has been in jail for nearly 21 days. She has been deprived of her human rights. She has no access to email. She is a lay-litigant. She cannot take the steps to get herself out of jail.
The Deputy should stick to-----
I am just saying that as we discuss this, there are serious wrongdoings arising from decisions of the courts with very poor training that have resulted in that type of individual fighting for her family home and locked in prison. Where is the justice for that woman and her family? Will the Minister intervene in that case? The answer to that is probably "No" because they are on one side and we are on the other. However, there has to be room for an intervention where something goes seriously wrong. It is wrong that that should happen to this woman fighting for her family home. I ask the Minister seriously to intervene in that case and determine how she might be helped.
There is a whole litany of differences in terms of the Judiciary, court orders and information made available to judges in the death of Shane O'Farrell. His mother, Lucia O'Farrell, has repeatedly pleaded with Members of this House, but to no avail. Where the justice system fails someone so badly and there is an abundance of proof that Lucia O'Farrell is correct, there should be an intervention.
Hear, hear.
Those people must be looking on aghast at this evening's debate - the stupidity of the whole thing.
Earlier I asked the Minister to withdraw the Bill because it is nonsense. He is imposing a cost of €1 million on the Exchequer. He is creating a commission that will be appointed by another quango - one quango appointing another quango with the authorisation of the Minister. Where is political responsibility in this debate? Where is Government direction in this debate? Where is justice in the debate? It is not present. We are discussing one political system replacing another flawed political system. When the Minister gets three names on a piece of paper from this very expensive quango and one of them is known as a Fine Gael supporter, I doubt he will look at the other two.
I am surprised at Sinn Féin, which might have extracted something through its support for the Government Bill and it may benefit people going through the system. However, surely Deputy Ó Laoghaire must be ashamed at what is going on here this evening, and what happened yesterday and on the previous day. The Minister has brought this Bill to the House with so many issues that we cannot even add up the number of members of the commission.
It is Fianna Fáil votes that-----
The Minister knows that is flawed and he knows this is a waste of time when so many other issues could be debated. Given that the Minister knows the system, I cannot understand why he will not be man enough to withdraw the Bill and bring back a perfected Bill which can be properly debated before it goes to the Seanad or anywhere else.
The committee members have done their work. We have come across a problem with last night's votes and we should be big enough as legislators to say that we will not pursue this defective Bill and that we will perfect it in such a way to bring it back in - even with Sinn Féin's support. We need a perfected Bill with the flaws taken out of it and issues dealt with to make it stronger legislation should it ever be contested outside this House.
It will be.
Then, maybe, we could focus on the real meat in a Bill like this, that of proper radical reform of the judicial system, where the wrongs in that system are corrected and reformed.
Lucia O'Farrell wants justice. Yvonne Walsh wants justice. She is languishing in jail this evening, after 21 days, and she cannot fulfil what the judge has asked her to do because it is not within her power to do it. Still the State stands idly by and watches that woman in jail, with her two children about to do their junior certificate exams. What a disgusting spectacle when a Government stands to one side and gives such huge time to debating this Bill. It is not right and the Minister knows it is not right, but he will not take the sensible and proper decision in terms of administration by withdrawing the Bill and perfecting it. I believe, at the end of this, we will still be back here next week or the week after, debating the same thing over and over again. Each and every one of us knows it is an absolute farce the way it is being put through this House. I appeal to the Minister again to withdraw the Bill, perfect it and bring it back.
Amendment No. 29 is in the name of Deputy Ó Laoghaire. He will be aware from my amendments how best I see the composition question on the commission being approached. Under my amendments lay members will be drawn from the Public Appointments Service process, as will the chairperson, similar to the Deputy's own view. IHREC will nominate its own lay person. I made the point before in regard to the Deputy's approach that his amendments would make it difficult for the comprehensive framework of knowledge and experience in subsection (7) to be referenced. If the Public Appointments Service was confined to only making a small number of selections from these categories of experience and knowledge, I believe we would risk losing valuable inputs in the appointments framework. I am concerned that by narrowing the selection of lay people under Deputy Ó Laoghaire's approach, we are losing out on important inputs.
Deputy Charles Flanagan: Amendment No. 29 is in the name of Deputy Ó Laoghaire. The Deputy will be aware how best I see the composition question on the commission being approached. Lay members will be drawn from the Public Appointments Service process, as will the chairperson, similar to the Deputy's own view of that. IHREC will nominate its own lay person, which we have touched on already. I made the point before, in regard to the Deputy's approach, that his amendments would make it difficult for the framework of knowledge and experience in subsection (7) to be referenced, in particular if the Public Appointments Service was confined to only making a small number of selections from these categories of experience and knowledge. I believe we could risk losing valuable inputs in the appointments framework. I am concerned that, by narrowing the selection of lay people under Deputy Ó Laoghaire's approach, we are losing out on critical inputs.
I believe amendment No. 30, in the name of Deputy Daly, undermines the position of the selection of the chair given there are specific requirements in section 12 underscoring the special position of the chairperson. I am concerned about that and, therefore, I am not in a position to accept the amendment.
With regard to amendments Nos. 31 to 36, inclusive, these are in Deputy Daly's name and in my name, so perhaps they can be taken together. I can defer to Deputy Daly in respect of them but Deputies will be aware these are merely necessary tidying-up amendments that make it clear that the relevant position as set out in section 12(5)(a), (b) and (c) can relate only to the lay members. Those provisions concern the three objectives set out in the subsection, that is, knowledge and experience of the matters set out in subsection (7) and the objectives relating to having an equal number of women and men and the diversity of the population as a whole.
Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 together remove from subsection (5)(a) the reference to the members of the commission appointed pursuant to paragraphs (e), (f) and (h) of section 10. In other words, it deletes references to the practising barrister, practising solicitor and lay members but realigns the wording to relate only to the lay members. Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 serve the exact same purpose in respect of subsection (5)(b). Amendments Nos. 35 and 36 repeat the process in respect of subsection (5)(c).
On amendments Nos. 37, 39 and 41, the fundamentals of section 12(7) are retained because these will be essential to the success of these measures. It acknowledges the pivotal role of the Public Appointments Service as the acknowledged leading recruiter for the public service in the State and that it will manage the process. My proposed amendments Nos. 37, 39 and 41 are on the criteria set out in section 12(7). On amendment No. 37, in Deputy Daly's name and in my name, Deputy Daly has spoken on this and I am with her on it. In amendment No. 39 I am seeking to reinsert in the Bill the words therein which were deleted by the committee, and the position is similar in amendment No. 41.
I can accept amendment No. 40 in the name of Deputies Daly and Wallace. With regard to amendment No. 39, I do not believe the reference to "administration" should be dropped as I believe it was an important part of the composition under the current Judicial Appointments Board. I can think of very many public and other institutions which, and, indeed, also eminent individuals with an administrative background in the public or private sphere who, could make a very substantial contribution to what the commission will be seeking to achieve.
With regard to Deputy O'Callaghan's amendment No. 43, I am aware we separately have similar requirements in section 12. I think we will need another member who will be more familiar with board procedure and governance. It may well come into play in a situation where the chairperson's role, for example, needs to be filled on a temporary basis.
On amendment No. 38, in the name of Deputies Daly and Wallace, apart from the actual recommendation function of the commission, the members will be required to engage in a substantial manner with procedures, practice and policies. This trait is captured in paragraph (e) and I believe it is important. As a result of that, I have a difficulty with amendment No. 38, which seeks to remove that. I caution against it.
My amendment No. 42 proposes the deletion of subsection (8), which I believe is superfluous as subsection (5) already mandates the Public Appointments Service in selecting the lay persons to have regard to the diversity issue and the equal number of men and women objectives. I am not sure that it needs to be repeated at this stage.
Amendment No. 43 is consequential on Deputy O'Callaghan's preference as to the manner of securing the chair of the commission, which we discussed in the previous grouping. I have a difficulty with that approach.
Taking on board some of the points made by Deputy O'Callaghan, we will press our amendments Nos. 25 and 26. I want to concentrate on the last points concerning our amendment No. 38 and its intention to delete that lay members of the commission would have knowledge of the "processes and procedures for making appointments to public office or to senior positions in public or private sector organisations", as well as the Minister's attempt to reinsert what the committee voted down, reinstating "board membership and corporate governance" as some of the skills that lay people might possess. We think it is critical that amendment No. 38 be accepted and amendment No. 41 be voted down.
I will give a relatively recent example where similar criteria were laid down in terms of board membership, corporate governance and public sector administration, as these were already included as two of the four matters that the Public Appointments Service must have regard to when selecting commissioners for IHREC in accordance with section 13(5) of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014. As a result of those two clauses, in a recent competition for IHREC commissioners by the Public Appointments Service, we had the exclusion from even an interview of Michael Farrell, the eminently qualified senior solicitor with FLAC, a lifelong social justice campaigner and a human rights consultant. He could not even get an interview for that panel because of those criteria being in place.
We have all made huge points to the effect that, if we want lay involvement to represent society as a whole, we do not want to have cloned versions of politicians, civil servants and big business. We want real diversity and of the two amendments, one must be passed and the other defeated if we are to have the necessary balance.
We are entering into unknown territory and have to be careful. We are seeking to identify the characteristics and eligibility of the lay persons who are to be appointed to the commission the Minister wishes to establish. I will be supporting amendment No. 30 in the name of Deputy Clare Daly because it seeks to remove section 12(4). The subsection refers to how people who are to be appointed to the board as lay persons must display certain characteristics. The first is that they must be a fit and proper person, which goes without saying. It also states they should have demonstrated experience of effective board management and corporate governance. That is legal-speak for getting people appointed who have served on boards of Irish plcs or other private or public company boards. I do not have any objection to these individuals, but I have a concern that we will find ourselves in a situation where appointments to the judicial commission will be similar to appointments made to Irish plcs. It will be the same group of individuals who were appointed by friends to other groups and the State will see that they are very respectable and knowledgeable, with great knowledge of board management and corporate governance. Anyone who sits on a board can say he or she has knowledge of board management; it does not even matter which board it was. It is a dangerous provision to insert as we do not want people coming from private companies or plcs onto the board to bulk up their CVs and enable them to say they served for four or five years on the judicial appointments commission. It is about insiders and we need to be careful about what the Public Appointments Service is doing. I am surprised that the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, is supporting this as he used to rail against insiders appointing friends to other plcs
We would like to think any attempt to reform how we select judges would actually be a reform and not more of the same. I am against the notion that we will legislate to encourage the Public Appointments Service to pick lay members from the section of society whose members are part of the status quo and do not challenge the powers that be. We were looking for fresh thinking and to come up with a commission that would represent the people of Ireland to a greater degree. I am confident that members of the Judiciary would be a lot more objective in selecting individuals they see fit to become judges than the people who come from these organisations who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. God help us - have we learned anything from how this society runs? There is a merry-go-round of individuals who have a certain dominance of power in Ireland. They have had a foothold here and this building, Leinster House, is overrun by lobbyists and people with influence who have an impact on how legislation is structured. One example is the REITs that were set up, which were outrageous. We created a situation where investment funds from abroad bought up stressed properties, used them in the rental market and paid no tax on the income.
That is not included in the Bill. I ask the Deputy please to speak to the amendment.
Bill Nowlan lobbied the Department of Finance 67 times in two years. Are these the sort of people we want to put on a board to select judges in the future? Give me a break.
I left the Chamber for a couple of minutes to confirm something I said in an earlier contribution that people who followed last night's debate and are interested in what is transpiring tonight are experiencing a lot of disquiet. Sometimes, when one is a Minister in the Cabinet, one becomes detached from what people are saying on the ground, although I do not say that of the Minister for Justice and Equality. He is, however, making a sacrificial lamb of himself in this folly by standing over something that is not worth standing over. This is a farce and a shambles.
A lot of the Members on my right have been here for far longer that I have been and I always listen to people who have been around for longer than I have been. I am hearing from them and people left, right and centre that this is wrong. I call on the Minister to wake up, smell the roses and realise he is backing a losing horse in this Bill. It has to be withdrawn and if he does not do so today, or tomorrow, it will happen eventually because people will realise he is making a major mistake. It would be prudent and smart to withdraw it, even at this late stage. I plead with him, in the the interests of common sense, to do so. One can have all of the education in the world, but one cannot beat common sense. The people watching are asking what, in the name of God, are we doing and trying to achieve. Why is everybody debating an issue when the Minister who is proposing it is not even here? The Minister for Justice and Equality should demand of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport that he be present to hear our concerns. Every one of us has been elected to do a job and it is only right and proper that the Minister be here to hear the debate.
I am also disappointed that the Minister is not here. I call again on him, "Tar isteach," but he is hiding in his burrow. I support amendment No. 30 in the name of Deputy Clare Daly. We are looking for a group of people with board experience and the knowledge of how to run boards, but the provision does not refer to the members of the board of Caislean Nua voluntary housing association, or a handball club, a GAA club or ordinary volunteers throughout the country who work and strive, day and night, might and main, to look after their communities. It refers to elitist boards such as those of plcs and their friends on the board of the Public Appointments Service and everybody else.
I do not know where the Minister is, but I remind him that on 24 May 1798 the rebellion of the United Irishmen-----
Will the Deputy please stick to the amendment?
I am sticking to amendment No. 30. The rebellion of the United Irishmen was Ireland's first republican rising. It began with a successful rebel attack on the Cork militia and the Ancient Britons who were cavalrymen at Prosperous, County Kildare.
That is irrelevant.
No, it is not. Deputy John McGuinness referred to a lady by the name of Yvonne, who is incarcerated in a prison because of the wrongful decision of a court. Directives of the European Court have been ignored and the Supreme Court is waiting to hear the case.
That is repetition.
I have not said this before. She has two children who are trying to do examinations and she is on hunger strike. She has been wrongfully detained without proper paperwork. A Supreme Court case was heard about the European directives and it has not been adjudicated on. Do they want us to go back to 1798? The Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, is hiding like the cavalrymen.
The brave people were defeated. After several risings we got rid of the British out of Ireland. It took us a long time but we did. Are we now going to be treated to this kind of codology? I will not say what I was going to say. I will put it down as codology. I will not call it anything that starts with a "b".
When we look at the directions given for the appointment of this commission, the first one is board management. That has been dealt with. It refers to "his or her having such experience, qualifications, training or expertise as is appropriate having regard to the functions of the Commission". How many years of experience is required? Is it open-ended? Is it one, two, five or 20 years? What qualifications are required for the job? Where are they listed? We cannot see them. They do not seem to be in the Bill. It just says qualifications. It is open-ended again. Must they have the leaving certificate? Must they have gone to college? Must they have a degree or a postgraduate qualification? What is required? It is not listed here.
Insiders.
What training is required? Will they have had to have done one round of the field, five rounds of the field or 20 rounds of the field? What training is the Minister talking about? It is not spelt out anywhere here. It is not listed anywhere. What expertise is being referred to?
Insiders.
I refer to desirability. Is it a requirement that they must have experience in the operation of the courts? Will they be people who were before the court for crimes or offences?
Unlikely.
How many times must they have been in the court? What is the Minister talking about? There are no specific requirements or standards-----
It is a requirement that the Deputy finish on time. I call Deputy Michael Collins.
I am sorry but these things are very serious and it is just open-ended. It is a laugh. I ask the Minister again to withdraw the Bill at this late stage and go back to the drawing board. Like the man on the television the other night, go back to school again.
Deputy Michael Healy-Rae said earlier that he spoke to people. I did the same. Maybe we might be taking the wrong direction. It is good to get direction from the people who elected us. The feeling on the ground is to stop now while the Minister is ahead. It is becoming more evident as the hours go on that this is a farcical Bill. I refer to fit and proper board of management experience. This is going down the road of elitism. We know where we are going now and I am shocked that some political parties are backing that.
Which ones?
That is not the road I would expect them to travel. However, it looks like it is. I would not support the elite to be getting jobs. That is exactly what we have been trying to clean out for many years. The nonsensical nod-and-wink style of politics. As Deputy McGuinness and Deputy Mattie McGrath said, there is a woman in jail for three weeks and no one cares. That is what we should be doing. We should be talking about Ms Yvonne Walsh and getting her freed to go back to her family in a crucial time in their lives. That is what we should be fighting and working for here, and we are not.
I refer to something I have been speaking about for a long time, the gentleman in Skibbereen who has had no justice for the last 13 years. No one here can tell me or that man how he can get justice and find out if there was a register in the court on that day. That has been overlooked completely. We continue to overlook important issues while we are sorting out the dream of the Minister, Deputy Ross. His dream is turning into a nightmare. He is in hiding. I have no doubt if he is down in west Cork, he is probably down in one of those potholes that he failed to provide funding for. A sum of €500,000 was spoken of. There is a bridge in Lyre in Clonakilty that needs €500,000 to be rebuilt since 2013 so that people can travel on the road. That €500,000 could repair the roads but the same Minister is not doing so. We should not be discussing this Bill. It should be in the bin.
The sin bin.
I call on the other party supporting and keeping it rolling on to pull the plug now in time.
I wish to respond to the points raised by Deputy Clare Daly in respect of her keenness to delete the bulk of subsection (4). We have debated the desirability of a legal or non-legal chair. My approach is to have a non-legal chair for reasons that have been well amplified both during the course of this debate and earlier. If we are having a non-legal chair, it is eminently appropriate that the non-legal chair is a person who is specially and appropriately qualified for the job. My concern is that the deletion of subsection (4) will take away important attributes that an expert chair should have. I refer to experience, effective management, qualifications, training, expertise and the desirability that he or she has knowledge of and experience in the matters to be specified.
I accept the points raised by Deputy Clare Daly but I do not agree with them. From that perspective, if we were to agree this amendment or if I were to accept it, I would be considerably and overly narrowing the important position of the chair of the judicial appointments commission. That is especially the case since at this stage we appear to be moving towards that person being a non-judicial figure or a non-legal figure. That is all the more reason there should be expertise.
I am sorry. The Minister never explained-----
That is not in order.
-----what he means by suitability, experience or qualifications.
That is not in order. Will Deputy Danny Healy-Rae please resume his seat? I call Deputy Clare Daly. She has two minutes.
He never gave us an answer to that.
I am not going to labour the points. The issues at stake here are about the chair of the commission. We were trying to allow the members of the committee themselves to decide the chair, removing that function from the Public Appointments Service, PAS. On the section the Minister referred to, I will not repeat all of the points made earlier but it is expertise in effective board management and corporate governance. The Minister said he does not agree with me. It is not me he is disagreeing with, however, but with the entire Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality. It voted to remove this criterion on Committee Stage. It was the will of all of the Opposition.
The other Deputies have articulated the points very well so there is no point in me dealing with that. It is not, however, about a non-legal chair. It is about the process of how the chair would be appointed and what type of a person the chair should be. We are allowing for the group to appoint its own chair but also ensuring that he or she does not come from the elite area we are trying to break up, refresh and in which to have something different. We honestly think the people on the commission are best placed to decide among themselves how that might be done. We are talking about a new approach. We are trying to have a representation from broader society but yet the wording here replicates criteria used on many other similar bodies. It is entirely inappropriate in this instance.
On a point of order-----
There are no points of order. That is the Order of Business. The rules of the House require me to put the amendment.
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 39; Níl, 53; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Brassil, John.
- Breathnach, Declan.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Browne, James.
- Butler, Mary.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Cahill, Jackie.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Casey, Pat.
- Cassells, Shane.
- Collins, Michael.
- Connolly, Catherine.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Curran, John.
- Daly, Clare.
- Donnelly, Stephen S.
- Fitzmaurice, Michael.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Haughey, Seán.
- Healy-Rae, Danny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Lahart, John.
- MacSharry, Marc.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McGuinness, John.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murphy O'Mahony, Margaret.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Loughlin, Fiona.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Rabbitte, Anne.
- Scanlon, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Troy, Robert.
- Wallace, Mick.
Níl
- Bailey, Maria.
- Breen, Pat.
- Brophy, Colm.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burke, Peter.
- Byrne, Catherine.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carey, Joe.
- Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
- Creed, Michael.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- D'Arcy, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Doyle, Andrew.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Fitzgerald, Frances.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harty, Michael.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lowry, Michael.
- Madigan, Josepha.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Munster, Imelda.
- Murphy, Dara.
- Naughten, Denis.
- Naughton, Hildegarde.
- Neville, Tom.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connell, Kate.
- Ó Broin, Eoin.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- Phelan, John Paul.
- Ring, Michael.
- Rock, Noel.
- Ross, Shane.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Clare Daly and Mick Wallace; Níl, Deputies Joe McHugh and Tony McLoughlin.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 26:
In page 12, line 29, to delete “either subsection (2) or” and substitute “subsection”.
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 40; Níl, 53; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Brassil, John.
- Breathnach, Declan.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Browne, James.
- Butler, Mary.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Cahill, Jackie.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Casey, Pat.
- Cassells, Shane.
- Collins, Michael.
- Connolly, Catherine.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Curran, John.
- Daly, Clare.
- Donnelly, Stephen S.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Fitzmaurice, Michael.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Haughey, Seán.
- Healy-Rae, Danny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Lahart, John.
- MacSharry, Marc.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McGuinness, John.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Murphy O'Mahony, Margaret.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Loughlin, Fiona.
- Rabbitte, Anne.
- Scanlon, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Troy, Robert.
- Wallace, Mick.
Níl
- Bailey, Maria.
- Breen, Pat.
- Brophy, Colm.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burke, Peter.
- Byrne, Catherine.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carey, Joe.
- Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
- Creed, Michael.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- D'Arcy, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Doyle, Andrew.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Fitzgerald, Frances.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harty, Michael.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lowry, Michael.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- Madigan, Josepha.
- Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Munster, Imelda.
- Murphy, Dara.
- Naughten, Denis.
- Naughton, Hildegarde.
- Neville, Tom.
- Noonan, Michael.
- Ó Broin, Eoin.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- O'Connell, Kate.
- Phelan, John Paul.
- Ring, Michael.
- Rock, Noel.
- Ross, Shane.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Clare Daly and Mick Wallace; Níl, Deputies Joe McHugh and Tony McLoughlin.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendment No. 27 in the name of the Minister cannot be moved as it is consequential on amendment No. 8.
Amendment No. 27 not moved.
Amendment No. 28 in the name of Deputies Clare Daly and Wallace cannot be moved as it is consequential on amendment No. 13.
Amendment No. 28 not moved.
Amendment No. 29 has been discussed with No. 25. Where stands amendment No. 29, Deputy Ó Laoghaire?
I am not moving the amendment.
Amendment No. 29 not moved.
I move amendment No. 30:
In page 13, to delete lines 1 to 11.
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 52; Níl, 41; Staon, 0.
Tá
- Brassil, John.
- Breathnach, Declan.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Browne, James.
- Butler, Mary.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Cahill, Jackie.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Casey, Pat.
- Cassells, Shane.
- Collins, Michael.
- Connolly, Catherine.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Crowe, Seán.
- Cullinane, David.
- Curran, John.
- Daly, Clare.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Stephen S.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Haughey, Seán.
- Healy-Rae, Danny.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Kelleher, Billy.
- Kenny, Martin.
- Lahart, John.
- MacSharry, Marc.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McGuinness, John.
- Mitchell, Denise.
- Moynihan, Aindrias.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Munster, Imelda.
- Murphy O'Mahony, Margaret.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Callaghan, Jim.
- O'Loughlin, Fiona.
- Ó Broin, Eoin.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Cuív, Éamon.
- Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- Rabbitte, Anne.
- Scanlon, Eamon.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Troy, Robert.
- Wallace, Mick.
Níl
- Bailey, Maria.
- Breen, Pat.
- Brophy, Colm.
- Bruton, Richard.
- Burke, Peter.
- Byrne, Catherine.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carey, Joe.
- Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
- Creed, Michael.
- D'Arcy, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Doyle, Andrew.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Fitzgerald, Frances.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Harty, Michael.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lowry, Michael.
- Madigan, Josepha.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
- Murphy, Dara.
- Naughten, Denis.
- Naughton, Hildegarde.
- Neville, Tom.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Connell, Kate.
- Phelan, John Paul.
- Ring, Michael.
- Rock, Noel.
- Ross, Shane.
Staon
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Clare Daly and Mick Wallace; Níl, Deputies Joe McHugh and Tony McLoughlin.
Amendment declared carried.
I move amendment No. 31:
In page 13, line 15, after "the" where it secondly occurs to insert "lay".
Amendment put.
Vótáil. It is only 9.30 p.m. yet.
Does the Deputy not have some canvassing to do?
Will the Deputies claiming a division please rise?
Deputies Michael Collins, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath rose.
As fewer than ten Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 72 the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of Proceedings of the Dáil.
Amendment declared carried.
I move amendment No. 32:
In page 13, lines 15 and 16, to delete "appointed pursuant to paragraphs (e), (f) and (h) of section 10(1) will" and substitute "should".
Amendment put.
Vótáil.
He does not even know what he is calling a vote on.
Will the Deputies claiming a division please rise?
Deputies Michael Collins, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath rose.
As fewer than ten Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 72 the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of Proceedings of the Dáil.
Amendment declared carried.
I move amendment No. 33:
In page 13, line 19, after “the” where it secondly occurs to insert “lay”.
Amendment put.
Vótáil.
Will the Deputies claiming a division please rise in their places?
Deputies Michael Collins, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath rose.
As fewer than ten Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 72, the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Dáil.
Amendment declared carried.
I move amendment No. 34:
In page 13, lines 19 and 20, to delete “appointed pursuant to paragraphs (e), (f) and (h) of section 10(1) will” and substitute “should”.
Amendment put.
Vótáil.
Will the Deputies claiming a division please rise in their places?
Deputies Michael Collins, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath rose.
As fewer than ten Members have risen in their places I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 72, the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Dáil.
Amendment declared carried.
I move amendment No. 35:
In page 13, line 22, after “the” where it secondly occurs to insert “lay”.
Amendment put.
Vótáil.
Will the Deputies claiming a division please rise?
Deputies Michael Collins, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath rose.
As fewer than ten Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 72 the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Dáil.
Amendment declared carried.
I move amendment No. 36:
In page 13, lines 22 and 23, to delete “appointed pursuant to paragraphs (e), (f) and (h) of section 10(1) will” and substitute “should”.
Amendment put.
Vótáil.
Will the Deputies claiming a division please rise?
Deputies Michael Collins, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath rose.
As fewer than ten Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 72 the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Dáil.
Amendment declared carried.
I move amendment No. 37:
In page 13, line 38, to delete “and/or the rehabilitation of offenders” and substitute “or the rehabilitation of offenders (or both)”.
Amendment put.
Deputies
Vótáil.
Will the Deputies claiming a division please rise?
Deputies Michael Collins, Mattie McGrath, Danny Healy-Rae and Michael Healy-Rae rose.
As fewer than ten Members have risen I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 72 the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Dáil.
Debate adjourned.
Amendment declared carried.
I am glad to inform the House go bhfuil an Dáil ar athló go dtí 10.30 maidin amárach.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.15 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 24 May 2018.