Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Like the Minister, Deputy Ross, I campaigned vigorously in the formation of the programme for Government for the introduction of some form of judicial appointments commission or reform of the Judiciary. I have to declare an interest because I have been before the courts and did not find the experience very good. I have vigorously defended the proposals for reform of how members of the Judiciary are appointed, as outlined in the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017. Notwithstanding the fact that Deputy Jim O'Callaghan brought forward his Bill, and he has more expertise on the legal profession than me, I was speaking ahead of this Bill all week because we had looked for it. Given the seriousness and the necessity of the measures being proposed in the Bill, it is vital that the Government urgently addresses its own clear divisions on this matter. It should not have taken a year and it is a pity that it is being rushed during the last two weeks. However, only for the ham-fisted way that the Government appointed the Attorney General to her new position on the Court of Appeal, this Bill would not be here at all this week. The Minister, Deputy Flanagan, can smile all he likes, but that is a fact.

The Minister, Deputy Ross, was clear in the programme for Government he negotiated. The Minister, Deputy Flanagan, was not there, although many of his colleagues were, but when I brought it up, I was nearly thrown out of the room. It was a taboo subject and I could not go there. I was rounded on and treated like an alien who did not know what he was talking about, but I do know what I am talking about. I have visited many of the courts.

The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, has displayed a kind of lukewarm enthusiasm and seems reluctantly to have come round to supporting the provisions of the Bill, but what the Minister, Deputy Ross, who is the driving force behind this Bill, is attempting to do is both politically courageous and long overdue. On talk about the books he wrote, we are entitled to do whatever we like when we are outside this House. The reaction of the Judiciary, while cloaked in concerns about the separation of powers and the appropriateness of the new process, is ultimately the last gasp of an elite group who, for far too long, have been self-selecting and self-regulating. That has to change like so many other areas in this country.

I will not go down the road of criticising everyone that is at the Bar or in the Law Library. I never will become a lawyer but I have known for too long, while involved in politics and before it, how appointments are made. I can quote experiences here if Members want. The Judiciary is not and cannot be immune to revision and reform such as those outlined in the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill. We have had too many experiences.

We have many good and eminent judges who, up and down the country, diligently and in difficult circumstances do their jobs daily, as Deputy Healy-Rae and others have said. However, this concerns the system of appointment and regulation, and the fact that there is no assessment of their behaviour or reactions or how they are getting on. There is no critique. We are not allowed to criticise them.

As I said when I spoke on the appointment of the former Attorney General to the Judiciary, we saw how the referendum was run for the new Court of Appeal. I opposed that, and I am glad I opposed it. There was no criteria as to how many judges would be on it, how many cases they would have to hear or how they would deal with the backlog. There is an outrageous backlog in the High Court, the Circuit Court and other places. My court case would be going on yet, ten years later, only that we got a special sitting. It was through a special sitting that I fell into the lion's nest or whatever one wants to call it. There is no accountability. We did not even set out in the referendum or the legislation that underpinned it how much the Court of Appeal would do. Can the Minister tell me how many cases have been heard? We have eminent people and legal professors challenging it every day. There is a kind of a go-slow there. I was not a fan of the former Minister, Mr. Alan Shatter, but a go-slow commenced when he seemed to be on his political crusade. Let that be where it is because we have to move on to where we are today.

There is such a furore about having lay people on the appointments board, but there will be a lay majority. There will be three judges, seven lay persons, one Attorney General, whoever that may be, and two representatives of the legal profession. I am pleased with that. What I am not pleased with, however, is how the lay people are to be appointed. Some people suggest that they should have expertise in finance and commerce or other issues. If ordinary members of the public up and down the country are fit to be on a jury every day of the week, 300 or 350 days a year or how ever many days it is, they are well fit to be on an appointments board. Why are they not? Will we have a two tier system? Is it that they are fit to be on a jury but not fit to have any say or role in how we appoint people who will direct a jury, throw out cases, work around cases to dismiss a jury if it does not suit - that is happening - or ill-treat a jury, as happens at times too?

We cannot have it every way. We have lay people. I am talking about ordinary lay people and others who are not lay people, such as professors, retired county managers or senior public servants appointed by the Public Appointments Service. I was in that bastion for two or three days appointing lay members that the Minister at the time wanted for the fisheries board. When I arrived there on the Monday morning to do the interviews - I happened to be the chairperson - I was met by a secretariat that told me they had obliged us at the weekend by reading through all the 120 applications and had picked out the top 20 for us. They gave them to us and we looked through them, but I said that we were not having it. I turned it upside down and said that we were going the other way. The 20 that were picked out were all elite, retired personnel who should have been out playing golf. They were probably playing golf when they were supposed to be working or whatever else. That is what is going on in this country. The handlebars of power are clasped by an elite and they want to keep it that way. If they end up in court, they want to ensure that they have their friends inside before them.

There is also the picking of judges for certain cases. The Ministers can close their eyes and smile that it does not happen. My dear Minister is new to the Department of Justice and Equality and he has a lot to learn, although I know he has experience as a solicitor. Again, there is an imbalance in the number of legal people. There is only a small number - 1,500 - of eminent barristers. I have engaged some of them - there are many good ones as well - and I must thank them for making it possible for me to be here. The attempt of the exercise was to get me out of here, but it did not happen thanks to a good defence and a fair jury.

Now the juries are not fit to be involved in the appointments process, even though they are only selecting those who are to go forward to the Cabinet in a process where the Chief Justice and the Attorney General will have a say. On the morning, the Minister will be slipped a note going in - that has been happening and it will happen the Minister too. It will be passed to him. He will be told to bring it in, that the Taoiseach wants this one and that it is Fine Gael's turn this time. The Minister, Deputy Ross, might never get one. He will never get one because he will not want to take it from them. I know that. We had an appointment made before by the former Minister, Deputy Howlin, who was so scared of the Minister, Deputy Ross. He got a fair few of them appointed himself. One appointment I forgot on the last night was by my good friend up here, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and one of his former Cabinet Ministers. I think she was the only justice that he got appointed but she did not have a very good track record and she is no longer there. I will say no more. However, this is what has gone on and it has been going on under our noses. The sooner we lift up our glasses and see what is going on, the better.

I salute the Minister, Deputy Ross on championing this issue. I know he has got it now by default because of the furore that happened last week. Fine Gael did not want an election. However, it is rushed legislation and there are parts of it that I am not happy with, especially how the lay people are picked. I have informed the Minister, Deputy Ross, that I will be tabling an amendment to the Bill to try to have lay people on it and not lay people when it suits them to be lay. They might have been lazy and lethargic in their jobs, but they are not lay because they are retired on pensions. They should stay retired on pensions and not be self-serving and keep the system in place.

I agreed with a lot of what Deputy Howlin said about the senior Civil Service - no disrespect to the people here - and how they mind the house, mind each other, and mind the system. I sat at a press conference in Buswell's Hotel today - I did not see too many there - on the right to homes Bill. Who is protecting those people from the vulture funds? The former Minister, Deputy Noonan, said they were a great invention in Ireland. They are worse than Oliver Cromwell in Ireland and the Government is giving them the imprimatur. No one will bring in legislation to stop them. We have the right to homes Bill now, and I do not believe it is a money Bill. It may be a money Bill but we can borrow the money at a reasonable cost and bail out the ordinary people who went and tried to home themselves, but now they are going before district justices of all kinds as lay litigants.

I have been down there. One of them was shoved in there by the former Minister, Deputy Howlin, not so long ago. He would not allow representation. A women was unable to stand up after a traumatic journey and is being imprisoned. She is a mother and a grandmother. He insisted that she stand up first.

Then he insisted that she represent herself, even though she was not able to speak, not to mention stand up to make a speech. That is the kind of injustice that gives a bad impression.

I got it into the Cabinet rooms last year. They did not want to go to this issue at all and they told me to leave it: "This is our territory; keep away from it." I may have been elected by the people of Tipperary but I was not going to change this system. I was told, "This is our system, it has served us well and it will keep serving us". On occasion, however, when it suited and when there were too many candidates for election, one or two were shoved onto the Bench and out of the way. The Minister cannot tell me that did not happen because I have evidence that it did. I have evidence and the Minister knows it. He can smile but it happened in his party too. That is what has gone on. It stinks to high heaven. The work of the good people is tarnished and diminished, the work of those who want to be in there, administering justice, which is a very important job.

Why is a person fit to be a juror in all kinds of complicated cases except those in the Special Criminal Court? Jurors are expected to be able to understand the law and to be fair and impartial. The majority of them are and I commend and salute them, but six or seven of them could not be brought into a room apparently. I heard a retired Chief Justice this morning and was shocked by her. She said that the chairperson of the appointments board has a very important role because he or she may be able to influence the other members of the board. Therefore, the chairperson cannot be a lay person because he or she might have daft ideas about spreading the wealth, spreading the preserve and taking down this bastion that has not served the people who fought to free this country. It was meant to, but it did not. It is time this Bill was passed. There are warts and failures in it because it is rushed. Rushed legislation is bad legislation but we need the change.

Why did the Government throw out Deputy O'Callaghan's Bill if it does not want to have anything to do with this? The Minister, Deputy Flanagan, was not in the Department of Justice and Equality then. He was in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and he helped me out with a number of issues, fair dues to him. Now he is in the hot seat. He has inherited a lot of issues and I know there were not many queuing up for his job. He is reluctantly sitting beside the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport tonight and, much as he does not like this Bill, he is putting it through the House. I salute the Independent Alliance for being in government and for being the watchdog and the guardian of the commitments that the Minister, Deputy Ross, made. Those commitments were included in the programme for Government, like many issues that we brought forward but we cannot find in the programme any more. We are trying to find them. Any time we leave a programme in the Chamber it disappears in case we read something else out of it. I support the Bill.

See this speech in context