Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is important to recall that the Courts Act is the legislation that sets out the qualifications for persons who wish to apply for appointment to the courts. Currently, any solicitor or barrister can apply to be appointed to the District Court up to the Supreme Court. Deputy Clare Daly is correct where she says that the majority of appointments to the superior courts come from the barrister profession. Similarly, the majority of appointments to the District Court come from the solicitors profession. The reason for both practices is because barristers practise more in the superior courts, whereas if one goes to the District Court, one will see that the advocacy and practice there is dominated more by the solicitors profession. I am not suggesting that either is not capable of doing the other work, and perhaps there should be more barristers in the District Court and more solicitors in the superior courts. However, the section before the committee is giving guidance to the commission and says that it should not recommend anyone for appointment to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal or the High Court unless he or she has an appropriate knowledge of the decisions and appropriate knowledge and appropriate experience of the practice and procedure of the courts. Irrespective of whether one is a barrister or a solicitor, I do not believe anyone should be appointed to a superior court unless he or she has knowledge of that court. It would be a virtually impossible task for someone who has never been in the court before to be put on the Bench and told to run the court. We need more solicitors to apply for positions on the superior courts. Many solicitors have been appointed. We do have a female solicitor in the High Court. It is changing over time and in a few years, I am confident that there will be a much higher percentage of solicitors in the superior courts than is now the case.