Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are referring to nine members, four of whom will be lay members and four of whom will be from the Judiciary, along with the Attorney General. The point I made on Committee Stage was that three of those are ex officiomembers, including the Chief Justice, the Attorney General and the President of the Court of Appeal. If the President of the Court of Appeal is temporarily replaced by the president of the relevant court, he or she becomes an ex officiomember as well. It would not be appropriate to provide in legislation specifically that an ex officio member of a committee should have proficiency or should be competent in the Irish language. Unfortunately, the population of Ireland is not universally proficient in the Irish language. We are trying to ensure members of the commission and candidates being considered for judicial positions would demonstrate diversity and flexibility.

For the specific purposes of the Bill, the attributes of qualification sought in the lay members is that they have knowledge of business, human resources, the courts and human rights, among other things. There is nothing here that precludes anybody from being proficient in Irish or fluent in both Irish, English or any other language. With the ex officiomembers specifically, I am not sure it would be good to specify they have to be proficient in the Irish language. Again, we have set out different types of qualifications, not excluding the fact people can be competent in the Irish language when included in the nine-person membership.

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