Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If having a lay majority is such an essential requirement in the process of selecting judges, the Minister might explain why a lay majority will not exist when the most important judges are being selected. It does not seem to stack up. Deputy O'Callaghan has made a relevant point in this context. If it is the case that the commission we are establishing, with the possible lay majority to which the Government seems to be so endeared, is not fit to be selecting senior judges, that is a serious contradiction. If the Minister and the Attorney General can be part of a three-person advisory committee - or, by the sounds of it, a four-person committee - the committee will be 50% political. If this is how the Government wants it to be, so much for getting independent lay individuals involved in a reformed system for selecting judges. The Minister should try to explain this contradiction. Why is it okay to set up this commission to pick the less significant judges while at the same time putting in place a little cabal to pick the senior fellows? The Minister might explain that to us.

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