Results 2,401-2,420 of 18,727 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: No, but he is-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: -----talking about the same principle, namely, that vacancies cannot be filled on a pre-emptive basis. One cannot start a process for a non-vacancy on the basis that one thinks one would be creating it by effecting a particular outcome because this would prejudice the whole arrangement. That is what Senator Craughwell is talking about. He said that, in his experience as a teacher, it may...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: It was always the case in my day that if a vacancy was created, the question of who would be appointed to fill that vacancy would be considered.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: I am referring to the appointment of judges. Of course, the reason that was done was that under the 2002 Act the appointment of judges to posts within the Judiciary fell outside the remit of the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board. If the Government decided to select a judge, such as an ordinary judge of the Supreme Court or High Court, to higher office - my experience predates the Court...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: There was no absence of process. Under the Bill, the process is one involving an absence of judges for long periods and a trickle-down effect whereby a vacancy is created in court after court. There is no absence of process whatever in the former arrangement. The Government would be well advised to ensure that if it creates a vacancy at one level of the Judiciary, it acts smartly to fill...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: It is obvious that Senator Craughwell was drawing an analogy regarding what happens when one has cascading vacancies. That is what we are now dealing with. It is introducing an artificial and undesirable delay to the process of appointment to judicial office to stipulate that a Government which decides to appoint a judge to another position in the Judiciary would not be able to decide to...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: Rightly so. However, when it comes to the Judiciary, it is not the case that the Minister should be asking judges to self-assess for the purpose of being promoted to the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court.It is a waste of their time and an invidious thing for them to be invited to do on a constant basis, especially when this awful Bill will mean they will not even be told if they have been...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: I am being optimistic.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: Senator Craughwell said if it was passed.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: The Minister is a great man for suggesting that scenarios are fanciful and language is exaggerated. Let us analyse what we have just heard from the Minister and work out what is fanciful about the following scenario. An ordinary judge of the Supreme Court is appointed Chief Justice. Is that fanciful in any shape or form? Is it more likely than somebody else from a different court being...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: The Minister knows as well as I do that it is very likely that it will not be an outside appointee to an ordinary judge of the Supreme Court. Such appointments occur very infrequently, although on occasions they are well merited. However, if one were to take what is likely and probable, it is very likely that a judge of the superior courts will be appointed to the vacancy in the Supreme...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: The Minister is living in a fantasy world if he believes there is something improbable about consequential vacancies arising in the Judiciary when appointments of a senior kind are made. If one was going down to Paddy Power to bet that an outside person will be appointed and there will be no trickle down effect of a vacancy in the position of ordinary member of the Supreme Court, as a...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: ----there have been a handful of appointments to the Supreme Court of that kind. The same applies even under the tutelage of the Minister. Even in recent times, I ask him the number of non-judges who have been appointed to the Court of Appeal. He has an open deck and can appoint whoever he wants at the moment to all of these positions. I ask him to show me how he has filled the Court of...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: Sorry. The Minister has not done it, his colleagues in Government have not done it and we are, therefore, in a position of what is now the norm, we are now being told by the Minister here in the House, is an improbable cascade scenario, what is going on at the moment is likely to change and likely to become improbable in the future, and I am exaggerating when I say that these jobs are filled...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: Overly dramatising the situation.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: I am grateful to the Minister for his comment. What have I dramatised?

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: I ask the Members what I have dramatised.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: I am focusing on the amendment. I am speaking exactly to the amendment and to the substance of the amendment. The Minister is saying, as a reason for not accepting this amendment, that the scenario whereby there will be consequential vacancies, as the rule rather than the exception, is overly dramatising the situation, but he is plainly wrong. If I am over dramatising the situation, could...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: The Minister has agreed with the proposition that the Government cannot say, "We will be appointing so and so Chief Justice and we have in the back of our mind to appoint so and so from the Court of Appeal to the vacancy". That would be an abuse of this new wonderful system we have, according to him, so we have to open everything, at every stage, throughout this consequential, sequential...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Feb 2019)

Michael McDowell: -----to have a separate competition for each and every position.The Minister stated that it is somehow fanciful and queried the time periods to which I referred. I stated that it will take two or three months for the judicial appointments commission to advertise a position, set a fair period for people to submit applications, interview and evaluate those individuals, meet thereafter and...