Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to amendment No. 31, which is an enabling amendment allowing for the more substantial amendment No. 50. That amendment is not included in this grouping, so it is necessary to explain the amendments.

One of the points raised on Second Stage was that, while the issue of a lay majority was favoured by many, a lay membership alone would not suffice, in that lay members would need to be more than the traditional State board appointees. They would have to have a wide range of perspectives and experiences and be representative of society as a whole, covering various organisations and sectors.

The amendments propose three different models. If I understand Deputies Daly and Wallace correctly, one model replaces the Attorney General with the Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC. I support that. They also propose replacing two of the six lay members with a representative of the Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, and a representative of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL. Deputies O'Callaghan and Chambers propose that there be six specific nominees for lay appointment.

My approach is that there needs to be flexibility. While the ICCL, FLAC and the IHREC are worthy organisations to nominate people, there are other bodies. For example, the National Women's Council of Ireland might have an interest in the manner in which violence against women is treated in the courts and, consequently, be interested in judicial appointments. There is any number of other relevant organisations, including the Migrants Right Centre Ireland and the Immigrant Council of Ireland.

Rather than be prescriptive, my proposed approach is for six lay nominees to be divided into two categories. Three are described in amendments Nos. 31 and 50 as "the General Lay Appointments" who would be appointed through the traditional Public Appointments Service, PAS, approach. The others would be what I have called "the Diversity and Social Inclusion Appointments". This would allow for any organisation that is interested in nominating persons and can demonstrate its relevance to the objectives of diversity as outlined in section 7 and-or the nine grounds in the Employment Equality Acts to be considered an organisation that can nominate. The PAS could maintain a list of organisations capable of nominating. It would then be for the judicial appointments commission to choose between their nominations to the three lay positions.

The advantage of this flexibility is that a call can go out to interested organisations, such as those I have mentioned, for nominations of persons whom they believe to be suitable for appointment to the judicial appointments commission. Those persons would have to demonstrate their capacity in terms of the eight criteria outlined in the legislation. Although I favour this approach over those favoured by other Deputies, I have a preference for that of Deputies Daly and Wallace. While there is merit in the approach taken by Deputies O'Callaghan and Chambers, it is more restrictive. The flexibility of the other amendment is preferable.