John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Members of the public looking in will be very dissatisfied with this. I agree with what my colleagues said. There is an awful lot of confusion, particularly with regard to ministerial responsibilities. I raised that issue last night. I agree that the Minister should consider withdrawing the Bill and starting again. The latest proposal that arose in the past few days involves using the opportunity of the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill to bring in some changes relating to sentencing guidelines. While I welcome the sentencing guidelines, just blending them with this Bill seems inappropriate. People also took the opportunity during the debate to question the decisions of judges of particular courts without offering any particular evidence during that debate. That is quite scandalous. I was thinking about some of the statements that were made last night. We may come back to that again.

One issue I raised last night concerned the example of family courts, which are in camera. I have received suggestions from constituents that some of the decisions and behaviours of judges raised the need for supervision of judges. That is the kind of thing that could be included in the Bill. What the public will be most lost about is the fact that even after we go through all of this process, the Government may discount all the suggestions and recommendations made by this new proposed quango and actually make its own decisions relating to the appointment of judges.

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