Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not invite any interruption. I am just stating facts. As I said here yesterday about the appointment of judges, I have nothing against the appointment or Ms Justice Whelan's credentials. I actually like her. She has done a lot of good work and I wish her well.

Thankfully, I opposed the Court of Appeal referendum, which very few in this House did, that set up this new Court of Appeal, of which Ms Justice Whelan is now president. However, the referendum was carried, although not by a huge majority because no attempt was made during the campaign by the then Minister, Mr. Shatter, and the Government of the time to explain what they were going to do, how many judges there would be and whether any work rate or questioning of how they would work was proposed.

The Judiciary badly needs reform, and I hope Ms Justice Whelan will lead that reform in the Court of Appeal and get some satisfaction from doing so. We cannot find out how many cases the judges have heard or what they have done since their appointments, and these do not come cheap. I also question the way in which the Judiciary has been appointed. I attended the Government formation talks. The Tánaiste was also there. The Minister, Deputy Flanagan, was not there but other Ministers were, and I wish them well in their new roles. I demanded that we have reform of the Judiciary. Deputy Shane Ross's name has been bandied around tonight. I compliment him because I fought for the same thing in parallel talks with the rural Independents, that is, reform and for it to be taken out of the grubby hands of politicians because they could not handle it. For all parties involved in government, including the coalition parties, there was a kind of barter system: you get one and I get two. That is the way it was with the previous Fine Gael and Labour Government, with Mr. High Priest Howlin from Wexford lecturing us all, or Deputy Howlin. I apologise. That is the way it was: two for one. Deputy Alan Kelly appointed all the board members of Bord na gCon and started to sack them in recent months after he had traded in people and other appointments for himself. That is the way grubby Government works, so the Deputies involved cannot be wringing their hands tonight.

I am delighted that the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport's Bill is being fast-tracked by the Government and we all have been invited to take part in the debate by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. I look forward to it because it is high time that we had it. I have been the victim of strange decisions by judges and strange appointments. I have the history and I can give it to the House any day of the week. I will not bring it here tonight, but I have it. That is why I am so passionate about this. I was blackguarded. That is why I am not in Fianna Fáil and I have told Deputy O'Callaghan this and I will tell the party leader, if he wants to find out too. I was surprised that the party leader impugned the reputation of the former Attorney General yesterday in comparison to the other three former incumbents. I was surprised to see him go that way and I am surprised that he did not say it in Brussels tonight. We sat yesterday for almost an hour at a Business Committee meeting to schedule a debate last night. When I came into the House to speak on it, the debate was gone. The opportunity could have been had last night for Deputy Micheál Martin to be present.

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