Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom labhairt i gcoitinne faoin gcur chuige a bheidh ag Sinn Féin maidir leis an mBille seo. In general, as I outlined previously, my party's position on the final vote remains in open consideration but as regards each set of amendments and each individual amendment, we will evaluate them on the basis of their merits.

We will be supporting this first group of amendments, which are largely technical. It mainly relates to providing, in a drafting sense, for a tidying up after decisions taken at committee to move from a position of separate committees being responsible for the appointment of judges to different courts to a position where the commission in general would be responsible for the appointment to those courts. The Minister was, with that approach of the different committees, trying to facilitate the participation of the President of the District Court and the President of the Circuit Court. Broadly speaking, I believe we were moving towards a consensus to resolving that issue on Committee Stage. The comments of the Attorney General may have thrown a spanner into the consensus that was emerging.

I nonetheless believe there was a general agreement about how it might be resolved. Perhaps the commission could be expanded such as is anticipated here or it could be done on the basis of ex officiomembers. That would facilitate the bringing on of the presence of those two courts. It makes sense to bring those two on. I am anxious to preserve the lay majority. It was the right decision to move to a more comprehensive single body and that the commission would be responsible for appointments. A number of amendments that were discussed on Committee Stage came from a submission from Dr. Patrick O'Brien from Oxford who made a number of points, some of which were taken on board. He made the point that the judicial appointments commission committee structure described in what was then section 11 and section 13 appears to be over-engineered having regard to the comparatively small number of appointments that are to be made to the Irish courts each year. He said it might be more economical and might lead to more consistency if the practice of constituting a slightly different committee for each appointment were replaced with a provision permitting the president of each court or their nominee to take part in the deliberations of the judicial appointments commission when they are considering candidates for that court. It is not quite what is anticipated by the Minister but nonetheless the same principle applies that the presidents of those courts should be in a position to participate. If all appointments come through the commission, there will be more consistency and there would be an understanding by the commission of the different needs and requirements in each of the appointments as well as the common attributes that would exist. In regard to those particular amendments, we will support them.

I will respond to what Deputy O'Callaghan said about the lay majority. It is something we firmly believe in. It is not a particularly radical proposal to have lay participation and a lay majority. While the Judiciary has served us substantially very well in the State there is an issue with regard to the transparency of the appointment of judges. Fianna Fáil has its own reasons for adopting the position it has adopted. There is history in that regard. It seems very clear to me that the Judiciary does not represent society as a whole. We will move further on into amendments which reflect upon how the lay appointments will be appointed and how we can ensure we have lay members on many public boards and that they are not necessarily reflective of society as a whole. We will move on to how we can improve it and how we can change the backgrounds of those lay members to ensure they are reflective of society as a whole. Our Judiciary does not reflect Irish society. The objective of several of the amendments that I and others have tabled is to ensure the judicial appointments commission tries to ensure we move to a position where the Judiciary is more reflective of society as whole. With regard to the lay majority, I do not believe it is entirely possible to achieve that objective and to move to that position if we have a judicial majority reproducing the same dynamic and being reflective of the reality that exists. That is the reason for the ideal that there would be people from organisations dealing with victims, people in rape crisis situations, young offenders, immigrant communities and a wide variety of experiences. It is important that it is part of the commission and that it makes up a majority of the commission. There should be significant representation there from the Judiciary, including all of the heads of the courts, namely, the Presidents of District Court and the Circuit Court. That is the dynamic that will best result in a process that is independent and transparent, which is what we all aspire to. It will ensure we have a Judiciary that reflects Irish society and that consequently the decisions it makes take account of the differing experiences of Irish citizens.

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