Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government legislation is constructed in such a way that only three names will go to Cabinet. The Government explained to us last week that its interpretation of the legislation is that the Cabinet can appoint one of those individuals or else completely ignore all three of them.

What Deputy O'Callaghan proposed was that the three names be ranked in order of merit and that if the Government bypassed those three names, it would have to give a reasoned explanation as to why it did so. If the Government's interpretation of the law is correct and it has the ultimate power, and if we want to introduce a system that will work as well as possible and ensure the Government does not ignore it, then we must ask ourselves one question. Which system puts more pressure on the Government? Is it a system under which it just gets three names and can bypass them without any explanation or a system under which it gets three names, ranked in order of preference, and it has to give an explanation if it bypasses those three names? The latter is an infinitely preferable system and an amendment along those lines would make the Bill much more workable.

The other proposal I object to is the one to exclude former judges from the commission. It takes 15 years to remove the taint of lawyership but once one serves as a judge, one is irredeemably tainted. People like Mr. Justice Nicholas Kearns and Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness are irredeemably tainted. There is no chance at all that they could ever become members of this exalted commission.

Last night the Minister for Justice and Equality came some of the way in terms of appointments to the District and Circuit Court. He said that there is an amendment that will enable the presidents of the District and Circuit Court-----

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