Mr. Liam Herrick:

With the first point the Deputy speaks about guarding against the worst possible scenario in a judicial-dominated system. One might equally point to the worst possible scenario in a politically dominated system, where an excellent lawyer who has been particularly critical of the State or represented persons that a particular Government might have a particular distaste for. That is at least, I suggest, as great a danger as the scenario the Deputy outlined.

Currently, we have a system that is largely lacking in transparency and we are talking about replacing it with a model which will have checks and balances because there will be multiple actors and constituencies represented on the primary decision-making body. There will be accountability, in the model we propose at least, whereby there will be reasons given.

On the second question, to say that recent Governments have abided by a convention may very well be true but that convention has been a system whereby the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board gives to Government a very long list of potential names for each particular post. That still affords the Government very broad discretion. The Government has abided by the convention but the convention has very broad discretion built into it. This leaves open the risk of either political appointments or the perception of political appointments. The latter will be restricted, curtailed and, we believe, improved by what is proposed in the general scheme and on the basis of the additional recommendations which we make.