Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank our guests, Mr. Cahill, Dr. Cahillane, Dr. O'Brien and Ms McNally for their presentations, which I found fascinating. I have a number of observations to make on the points they made and I would ask that they might extrapolate and tease them out a little bit further. On the point made by Mr. Cahill on a wider pool of legal academics, could he extend those thoughts and ideas for me? On practice and procedure, I fully get what Ms McNally is saying there. Could she perhaps expand on the point about judges serving currently on the District and Circuit Courts? I believe she is saying they do not go through the same robust interview process or anything like that in their application process, as opposed to an application made for the superior courts.

Will she expand on that? I like the point about their suitability for a different court. As was said, they may have sat on the Bench of a Circuit or District Court from a number of years and are going into an area that is vastly different. What is the difference in their applications for that higher court?

Dr. O'Brien spoke very eloquently about diversity and equality. I think no one would disagree with that. The point he made about the positive aspects politics has played in achieving that was interesting. He might make a further comment on that. His comment on the Attorney General serving as a member of the commission while serving the Government is a valid and obvious point, which was made very well. I commend and agree with him on that.