Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this legislation. I will take the opportunity to wish the Minister, Deputy Charles Flanagan, well in his new role. He will bring much energy and vigour to the role. He was a justice spokesperson at one time. That was before he backed the wrong horse but he has landed into the hot seat now and I wish him well. He was taken out of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade at a crucial juncture and events in the North are not moving satisfactorily. The Minister was making a positive contribution to that.

To return to the business at hand, if any Member came into the House and called someone a fraud it would be wrong, especially if the person was not a Member of the House. It is fair to lay the charge that someone who is a Member of the House is a political fraud. The actions of the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, in his crusade, the debate around judicial appointments and the dishonest misrepresentation on which he has campaigned over the years are very concerning to me and many right-minded people. This is a man who has authored a book on the Judiciary and judicial appointments and has run a campaign for so long, describing the Judiciary as untouchable elites, taking every opportunity to unfairly denigrate our Judiciary. I am not saying everything is hunky-dory with the Judiciary. There are challenges but there are challenges in every section in our public service. We all have an obligation and a responsibility to address those issues. A judicial appointments commission is badly required and there should be more training for judges and more diversity but to build a campaign and follow it through with proposed legislation is very concerning. I will not forget some of the commentary I heard after the last general election when the Independent Alliance was in consultation with Fine Gael to form a Government and there were various doorstep interviews outside Government Buildings.

This was at a time when there were and still are so many issues for discussion, such as homelessness, and we can go right down the line to include water, provision of housing and pay inequality. Deputy Shane Ross had his Independent Alliance colleagues standing in front of Government Buildings telling the nation that what was between the negotiating parties was the appointment of members of the Judiciary. It is interesting that during my time as justice spokesman this came up for debate over the years. Everybody's starting point in the debate was that we have a very fine Judiciary and we are lucky to have such an independent and a fair-minded Judiciary. People praise the current complement of people serving us on the Bench before ridiculing or decrying the system, in which everything is wrong. They argue the system is compromised but at the same time we appear to be fortunate to have the Judiciary we have. It is staggering hypocrisy.

I agree with other speakers. The Rugby World Cup bid Bill is of immense importance but it has been relegated to second place in terms of priority this week, despite the major impact that event could have on this country. Apart from the criticism I have levelled at the Minister, Deputy Ross, for his crusade against judges and the Judiciary, one can ask what he has achieved outside of this within his Department. He threw a lousy €1 million to my part of the country to restart the programme for construction for the much-needed M20 motorway to link Cork and Limerick.

I can give another example of the blatant hypocrisy with which he operates. There is a very significant commercial semi-State port in my constituency, the Shannon-Foynes Port Company, and I am told that either at the end of this month or certainly within a number of short weeks, its board will not have a quorum and it will be unable to conduct meetings in a legal sense. I submitted a parliamentary question in this regard with reference to all State agencies under the remit of the great Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, a number of months ago and there is a raft of vacancies. What is going on? These are agencies of State with obligations under company law and many other headings but they find themselves with corporate structures being fundamentally undermined by the inaction of the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross. He has stated applications are with the Public Appointments Service.

There is another matter running in parallel to that problem. A person presented before the committee on which I sit, the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, who was designated to chair the Health and Safety Authority. He is a very competent and able individual. We had an engagement with him prior to him taking his post. I had no issue with his competence or ability to do his job. I wish him well and I am sure he is doing a very good job. He told the committee that he was not interviewed for the post at all and he just applied online before he was offered the job. That leads to other questions about the system of appointments to State boards. Is there now a scenario where we cannot have oversight or transparency in how the Public Appointments Service runs processes and competitions to fill these positions? One would imagine at the very least there would be an interview but there was not in this case.

I would like to be discussing other matters with the Minister instead of the judicial appointments process. For example, there is the major problem with free legal aid. It is a demand-led scheme, as the Minister knows, but week in, week out in my constituency I must deal with problems of access for marginalised and vulnerable people with regard to the civil arm of the free legal aid scheme. Criminal free legal aid is absolutely dominant in budget terms and it is an area we must examine fundamentally. There are battered spouses and people coming from other abusive relationships who need to seek redress or support in the courts but they cannot because when they apply for civil free legal aid, they are locked out or put on a waiting list on the never-never. It is not really good enough in this day and age as these people's lives are so negatively impacted on. We can compare this with the hardened criminal availing of the service on a continuous basis over weeks and months for offence after offence. I know that there is the constitutional matter of having the right to a fair defence. I would much rather see us discussing that subject tonight.

Another matter pertaining to the Minister's Department that we must take seriously is the undocumented population in this country. The Migrant Rights Council of Ireland tells us, correctly, that there is anywhere between 26,000 and 30,000 undocumented workers in the Irish shadow economy. Apart from those people being vulnerable, exploited and unable to avail of the protection we have in the labour force, they are also suppressing wage rates because of their work in the shadow economy, which has an impact on people working in the official economy. It is an area that comes within the Minister's remit. We published a Bill during the previous Dáil to regularise the undocumented and there was a presentation at the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation today from the International Transport Workers Federation trade union, which represents people working in the fishing industry. It is truly shocking to hear of the exploitation of a large number of workers in that industry and, in particular, a large number of undocumented workers. We should be discussing such topics rather than this Bill.

The differences between this Bill and the legislation proposed by my colleague, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, is what is coming between our parties. Nobody is against reform and the process must be reformed. The key significant differences should be noted, including the ranking of names being forwarded. There should be a ranking of first, second and third. There should also be an obligation on the Government to give a reasoned explanation if any names are not put forward. The Bill emanating from the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, makes a mockery of trying to remove the political patronage or interference he alleges from the judicial appointments process. The Bill just has the provision for three names that can be rejected out of hand without a reason before going the other route. At least with Deputy Jim O'Callaghan's Bill, there must be a ranking of first, second and third.

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