James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Smyth has a commitment and she might join us a little bit later in the meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to consider the Committee Stage of the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022. I welcome the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, to our meeting. This is an example of the system working well, in the sense that this is a Bill we took in at the start of the term. We produced a report on it after a number of hearings. The Minister took some guidance from that report and certainly amended the Bill based upon some of our recommendations. The fact that the Bill is back to committee in pretty rapid succession and has been processed expeditiously is good as well. It is a good sign all round. I thank everybody involved. I thank the Minister for taking on board our amendments and the committee for its due diligence.

We will move on to consideration of the amendments. While we do still facilitate hybrid meetings, if a vote is called at any stage, Deputies must be physically present in the room. They cannot vote remotely. We will deal with that if it comes along but there is a technology in use which allows us to see the votes on screen, if needed. We have not seen it in this committee yet, but I have used it in other committees.