Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I am not content with the Minister of State's response. Basically, he accepts that the judges should take a cut in their pay, he cites the remuneration group as evidence in support of that, and he states he will facilitate a voluntary cut in the Finance Bill.

Deputy Charles Flanagan, who I thought the Minister of State was including in his praise for persons with a legal background, made the worthwhile point that we do not want a league table of judges produced which will list judges who have given up their pay voluntarily and others who have not. If the Government wants to create a situation whereby the Judiciary comes into disrepute, one creates a sort of voluntary pay-up scheme, which clearly is unsatisfactory.

We should be clear-cut on this. Either we accept the Fine Gael amendment and we take our chances in the court or we accept the alternative, which is Deputy Shatter's constitutional approach, which is clearly much more robust.

We are left in the unsatisfactory position trying to debate with Government an issue that we have signalled. The Minister of State knew we were tabling this, knew we had to respond to it and comes back in here with this clearly unsatisfactory solution - voluntary surrender in respect of, as I understand it, only the pension part, not the entire contribution, which at this stage will be probably 25% of judicial pay.

The Minister of State is not adequately briefed to deal with the issue, as I understand it. I am persuaded by listening to other colleagues that the voluntary route he is offering is not a satisfactory solution. It leaves the Judiciary in an invidious position whereby league tables will be created. Deputy Barrett also makes an important point, namely, that if we are so ginger about what general provisions ought apply to judges - in my view, it was never the intention of the authors of the Constitution that judges would be immune from general provisions of law that affect categories of which they were only a tiny proportion - and if we take the view that we cannot touch judges in that way, surely the signal the Minister of State has given, the notion that judges should now be put into a category where they will get no further pay increases, is in breach of that principle. That certainly singles them out for treatment.

I am not persuaded by the defences the Minister of State offered. Has the Government held discussions with representatives of the Judiciary to establish exactly its perception of Government policy in this area? Does it see the hazards that others in the House have referred to in respect of voluntary contributions and lists of those who are in and those who are not? Is the Judiciary four square behind the Government and its view? We ought to know because the vehicle the Government is offering to deal with judicial pay is so strange. What consultation has taken place? I am persuaded that we should run with our proposal. Either the Government should accept our proposal or we should deal with the matter in the way Deputy Shatter has pointed out.

See this speech in context