Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On head 25, I am not clear on the Department's position of barring two titles, the director of military prosecutions and military judges, and there is scope within the head of the Bill to include others, and bar them from membership of a representative association on the basis that they are required to be independent. The director of military prosecutions is free to be a member of a trade union. I do not think anybody would suggest that the director would take a different view of a case before him or her because the alleged perpetrator of a crime was a member of the same trade union. Let us consider that already in the military justice system commissioned officers could regularly sit in judgment of fellow officers and RACO members, in this instance, where one could have equality officers carrying out investigations and making findings yet all the time bound, by statute, to be independent in the performance of their functions.

I am not aware of another piece of legislation that specifies job titles as being barred from either trade union or representative organisation membership. It is quite concerning and it needs to be teased out. I am not sure that the arguments put forward stand up to scrutiny, because we would have problems if we were to apply them across the board.