John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are 17 on the commission, a directorate, there will probably be a legal firm advising it and accountants who need to report to the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Minister is allowing this to happen. He is smiling about it and I know he will deny the €1 million but he knows only too well that this is going to grow into something that will be out of control, out of reach of this House and will function solely in the interests of the Judiciary. It is nothing new or different and it is something that the Minister honestly does not believe in.

I hear the argument about having people outside of the Judiciary, members of the public, on this but what did the Judiciary do to the positive, constructive lay litigants? It introduced its own rules to ensure they would not be bothering it in the court. We have lay litigants because they do not believe in the system, they believe that it is broken. This is not going to fix it. This will add another broken piece to it that will not serve us or the public and that will allow the Government of the day, regardless of what Sinn Féin says, to establish this but at the end of the process, it will make its own political appointment. That is what it will do. It will go through the process and the Minister will make his own appointment. It is all in the interests of one person, namely, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross. It is incredible that the Minister is doing this. The Minister should tell the truth that he does not believe in this. He has been sent in here to deliver this to save face for the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and to keep the Government on course. It is shameful.

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