Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Carthy.

The facts of the matter before us are as follows. On 27 June, the Minister for Justice took office. Waiting on her desk when she arrived in the Department were four applications for the job of Supreme Court judge, a massive job carrying a salary, in excess of €220,000, paid for by taxpayers. The Minister had four applications - not one, as she and other Ministers have tried to make out, but four. Whether they came from JAAB or via expressions of interest is immaterial. She had four applications. On 15 July, she recommended one of those applicants to the Cabinet for appointment to the Supreme Court. That person just happened to be the previous Attorney General and long-term Fine Gael activist, Séamus Woulfe. Four became one.

Any reasonable person would have expected the Minister to come before the Dáil today and set out how those four names were whittled down to one. She has not done so. She said that she had no discussions about the applicants or their suitability for office with the Taoiseach, Tánaiste or any other Minister. This is not credible in the slightest. The Tánaiste, who is the Minister's party leader, knew there were other applicants. In fact, he knew Séamus Woulfe had applied for the position because he said so to the now Taoiseach and the leader of the Green Party during the negotiations on the programme for Government. The Minister did not, however, tell the Taoiseach that there were other applicants. Why was the Fianna Fáil leader kept in the dark in this regard when the Minister's party leader and others were aware that there were additional applicants?

Much of the Minister's story just does not add up. At a meeting of the justice committee last week, she said in response to a question from me:

... I looked at the recommendation that had been made and other expressions of interest that often come for any of these positions. Following that I spoke to the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and the Attorney General. On foot of that, a recommendation was made, and a name was given to Cabinet.

I find it absolutely baffling that the names of the applicants and their suitability for appointment would not be discussed at that time by the Minister and the party leaders in government. The successful applicant was a long-term Fine Gael activist who served as Attorney General in a previous Government. Yet, there was no disclosure and no discussion in this regard with the Minister's partners in government. Even if we suppose that the Minister did make this decision on her own, the fact remains that one name out of four was signed off by Cabinet and it is the one the Minister brought to Cabinet. The other three rejected applicants were all sitting judges and, presumably, experienced and very well qualified if they were applying for such an eminent position. However, Séamus Woulfe, the long-term activist, is the name that miraculously made its way to Cabinet.

I have heard the Minister say that she looked at the four names and made her decision. On what basis did she evaluate the applicants? What motivated her decision to bring to Cabinet the name that she did? Was it the individual's experience? Was it his reputation in dealing with complex cases? What were the criteria applied in respect of this appointment to the highest court in the land? What the Minister is telling us simply does not stack up. She told RTÉ last Friday evening that she took a number of weeks to consider the appointment. However, in response to a parliamentary question, she said that she did not receive the memorandum with the details of persons applying for the post until 6 July. According to the same response, she started to speak with party leaders on 11 July, with whom she says she did not discuss the issues of suitability or experience. The consideration she gave to the matter took days, then, not weeks. None of this stacks up and that is why we are here today.

This appointment was a done deal. A Fine Gael-supporting Attorney General was on his way out and Fine Gael needed to find a job for him. He was one of Leo's cronies and that is the Fine Gael way of doing business. The Minister did it and Fianna Fáil went along with it. The Green Party, God help it, did not know what to say or where to look. This was a Fine Gael appointment. It was boxed off long before the Minister ever took office and she signed off on it. That is the reality and it is why we are here today.

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