Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It also means that by the time the judicial barrister or solicitor representative has been selected, he or she will potentially be so far removed from practice that this qualification will have become meaningless as it relates to his or her knowledge of the profession. I recall a president of the District Court telling me that, when he was on the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, JAAB, he would always listen very carefully to the Law Society representative because he or she would know whether the applicants had blotted their copybooks in any way. What he was really saying was that this representative knew exactly what was going on in the profession at any given time and that he or she had a contemporary insight into practitioners and the conduct of practices, which is extremely important and telling in respect of judicial experience.