Mr. Liam Herrick:

The Deputy is making very important points. We do not believe that the approach proposed in the general scheme precludes the possibility of procedures being set by the procedures committee. The criteria to be established under the proposed Bill would allow the commission to take into account some of those overall considerations. For example, we are mandating that it would take into account considerations of diversity, which, of course, cannot be considered just in terms of isolation of individual appointments and must be done in the round. Similarly, we would have thought it possible under the current proposals for the commission to also take into account wider questions of balance as well.

It is probably difficult to make an overall assessment of the proposed approach until we see what procedures are ultimately agreed by the procedures committee. That is our understanding but I defer to Mr. Condon, who clearly has a deeper insight into the thinking behind the proposed approach.