Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is because he wants to continue the crusade which has been his hallmark in recent times and throughout his career. He wants to get big headlines. He knows that the media, if no one else, will cover his attack on the judges. There are column inches in it, which is particularly attractive to him. Unfortunately, for many years he has been riding his white horse and conducting several moral crusades. However, as we have seen since he got into government, the white horse has been put out to grass and instead he is on the pig's back in terms of having a Cabinet seat and he is very much enjoying the experience. He has arrived at a Cabinet position, unfortunately from the public's point of view, but we are not seeing the delivery of any serious measure from him. We are not seeing any leadership or getting any insight from him on what he wants to deliver in his Department. Instead, we have seen him being willing to meddle in other issues, including majoring in this issue, but showing no willingness to grasp the opportunity he has received as a Cabinet Minister to make a real difference in the portfolio he was given. For example, delivery in the areas of transport, tourism and sport has been minimal. The interest he has shown in those areas has been little to none. We waited several months before there was any plan of action from him, other than items from other Departments which interested him but none from his Department.

On recent replies to parliamentary questions from my colleague, Deputy Robert Troy, about the Open Skies agreement, the Minister has not been engaging in any dedicated way with fellow Ministers from other European nations to try to protect it. I see no interest being shown by him in transport projects in my constituency of Donegal. We have a number of key projects that need to be moved on, yet he prefers to focus on an issue such as the one before us rather than, say, the need for a bypass around Letterkenny, a major town in my county, the need for a link road between Letterkenny and Lifford, or to progress the A5 project from Derry to Monaghan. He has shown no interest in such projects.

On tourism, we are not seeing anything of import coming from the Minister. There is nothing additional with respect to new investment in the Wild Atlantic Way. I have raised regularly on the floor of the House the need for an investment package in my county to exploit the potential offered by the National Geographic magazine in announcing Donegal as the coolest place on the planet in 2017. This helps greatly in promoting the county and presents an opportunity for the Government to invest in it to develop its undeveloped tourism product, yet nothing has been forthcoming from the Minister.

If it is to be the Department of Justice and Equality that is to take up time on the floor of the Dáil, I advise the Minister, Deputy Charles Flanagan, that we should be focusing on the Garda. We should be spending time debating the need for Garda resources and proper garda deployment, an issue I have raised as it affects my county. We have seen a 20% reduction in the number of gardaí in the period from 2010. We had 480 gardaí previously, but the number is now just over 380. Of the 1,000 new Garda recruits since 2014, only 17 have come to County Donegal. I have corresponded with the Minister and his predecessor, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, on the issue. I use this opportunity to highlight the need for the reduction to be addressed as new Garda recruits graduate. Given that only 17 of the previous 1,000 garda recruits were allocated to County Donegal, the reduction needs to be addressed. The emphasis needs to be placed on addressing gaps in the system. I have no doubt that Donegal is not unlike a number of other counties in terms of the pressure gardaí are under, but the problem is particularly acute in my county because of the pressure of policing the Border with Northern Ireland, a problem that is not recognised. Many Border stations, in particular, have been starved of gardaí. It is impossible for the Garda force to offer the type of service expected and that the people require. Over the course of the confidence and supply agreement, the objective is that the Garda force will reach 13,500. I continue to liaise with the Minister to emphasise the need to address the under-resourcing of the Garda force in County Donegal in meeting that objective.

Instead of addressing that issue we are dealing with the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill and a massive amount of Government time is being devoted to the debate. I make the point which made by all of my colleagues that Fianna Fáil recognises the need to reform and improve the process by which judicial appointments are made. In that regard, my colleague, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, brought forward a Bill more than a year ago to achieve that objective. It is a superior Bill to the one brought forward by the Government. Despite the fact that it was introduced in the Dáil more than a year ago, the Government did not move to facilitate it being discussed at justice committee level by issuing the money order required for that debate to take place on Committee Stage. It was remiss in not doing so. Now there is a panic and a big push by it to deal with this Bill that was brought forward at the behest of the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, and on which a great deal of Dáil time is being spent. One has to ask why that is the case. It goes back to the Cabinet's decision, taken at the former Taoiseach's last Cabinet meeting, to proceed with the appointment of the Attorney General, without her submitting an application to the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board while she sat at the Cabinet table, to the Court of Appeal.. Meanwhile the Minister was happy to sit at the Cabinet table and nod the decision through, yet when the heat was on, we saw him revert to his crusade to clean up politics and the way judges were appointed.

7 o’clock

Deputy Shane Ross has been on a crusade to clean up politics and the way judges are appointed. The Minister had to restrain himself from laughing when the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, in defence of himself after the appointment had been made, said how dare anyone else criticise him when he was only doing what others had done before him. That is a long way from what he campaigned on and from his main crusade. He let the mask slip. He had the comfort of a Cabinet seat and being at the Cabinet table when the decision was made. The decision of someone not being appointed through the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, JAAB, was helped by getting Stepaside Garda station reopened. The Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, was quite happy to agree to that thinking that it might well go through on the nod. However, when he realised the public was not buying it, he reverted to type and went out to the plinth to criticise his own decision and look for a review of how the Cabinet made the appointment despite the fact he fully supported the decision at the time.

One of the key differences between the Fianna Fáil Bill and the one proposed by the Government is that our legislation requires the judicial appointments commission to give a preferential order in regard to the nominees it recommends to the Cabinet. That is something any reasonable person would think is an improvement. When one goes to the trouble of asking a commission to vet and conduct interviews and assessments on candidates' suitability, it follows and is logical that one would ask it to rank them in order of preference, based on its view and assessment of the most qualified candidates. It has been pointed out that one of the weaknesses of the current system is that a number of names can go forward to the Cabinet with fairly limited information about their suitability and without being ranked. It is then left to the Cabinet to decide without the full information available to help it make its decision. The proposal put forward by the Minister, Deputy Charles Flanagan, and the Government restricts it to three names but, as before, those three names would not be ranked. That is a weakness in the legislation being proposed and one which does not make sense. Under the Constitution, the responsibility for making the appointment must always rest with the Cabinet and it is entirely within its remit to appoint anyone, even outside of the list of nominations provided to it but when it is provided with the list, it should include details of the order of preference of the commission or board making the recommendation.

The other key difference is the treatment of those with a legal or judicial background. There has been much focus on this not least because members of the Judiciary have come out publicly on the point that the Government's Bill does not have the Chief Justice as the chairperson of the commission, the role being held instead by a lay person. Also, the President of the High Court and the President of the District Court are not full members of the commission. The Bill expresses a strong preference for people who do not have a legal background. As with any other profession, one needs experience to be able to decide who is capable and best suited to carrying out roles, and that applies to the legal profession. Under the legislation Fianna Fáil proposes, while there would be a non-judicial majority on the commission, there is clear identification of who those lay members should be. For instance, it includes representatives of the Legal Aid Board and Citizens Information Board, people who have a role and something to contribute to the process. There is a clear purpose behind why those people are there. The clarity in our legislation is welcome. This is a flaw in the Government's legislation.

I urge the Minister to take on board the amendments proposed by this side of the House and to look at the structure of Fianna Fáil's legislation which we believe is superior. I reiterate to the Government and the House our disappointment that this is the Bill on which the Government is majoring, albeit at the behest of the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross. It is a poor reflection on the Government that this is its signature legislation for this Dáil term, coming from the Independent branch of the Government. It certainly does not reflect the mandate it was given by the public or the platform on which it campaigned in the recent election when it sought the electorate's support.

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