Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will pursue those two points again and hopefully we will get a little more clarity from the Taoiseach on them. I have no difficulty with any member of the Government pursuing areas outside his or her own direct purview. The Cabinet acts as a collective and that is quite proper. I am more concerned about the reports in last week's Sunday Business Post that after a year of lecturing us all on the probity and unacceptability of political interference or political selection of judges, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport said that not only did he hand pick them, he went through each application with a fine-tooth comb. Is that proper? Does the Taoiseach think it is proper that before judges are appointed, an individual member of the Cabinet would do that? I can only imagine the high dudgeon if any member of the Fine Gael Party or a member of any party in a previous Government made that assertion when the current Minister was sitting in the back row of the Opposition benches. He would have gone into high indignation at the notion that such political, improper interference in judicial appointments was occurring and yet he used a "fine-tooth comb" on each individual application and if they met his personal assessment, they were deemed appropriate. Apparently that is not political interference because the Minister, Deputy Ross, is, as I said yesterday, like Donald Trump - he is not a politician. He is to be seen in some different light. He is not contaminated like the rest of us who were elected to this House, apparently.

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