Results 2,621-2,640 of 18,726 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Jan 2019)

Michael McDowell: The Government is entitled to balance the courts in terms of gender but if it believes that one person is more appropriate than another then it is not just its entitlement to make an appointment along those lines, it is its duty to do so, full stop.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Jan 2019)

Michael McDowell: The words "function and duty" are carefully chosen. The amendment goes on to provide that, in advising the President on appointment to judicial office under Article 35 of the Constitution, the Government will "advise in accordance with its own judgment". That must be the case. It must be the Government's judgment, based on its duty to do the right thing by the people and not to be...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Jan 2019)

Michael McDowell: I welcome any indication of flexibility on the issues that have been raised. The Minister should remember something. He pointed out that this has been a long debate and that these matters have been raised before. Like me or any other Senator, he has been in a position to table additional amendments to cater for these issues in order that we might discuss them on Committee Stage. He has...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Jan 2019)

Michael McDowell: Why should everything be kept opaque? What really worries me is that although the Minister might be disposed to making amendments to deal with some of the issues I have raised, the first debate is going to take place in the august Cabinet room where, thus far, there is at least one person who appears to believe that the points being made along these lines are being made in bad faith and...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Jan 2019)

Michael McDowell: Perhaps I misinterpreted what the Minister read from the typescript in his possession. I thought he was signalling an openness to revisiting some of the issues he previously indicated that he was unwilling to examine. I may have been wrong to see flexibility in that regard. Maybe I am just witnessing a desire to appear to be reasonable-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Jan 2019)

Michael McDowell: -----that is unaccompanied by any evidence that there will be reasonableness. I am of the view-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (22 Jan 2019)

Michael McDowell: I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I welcome that. The Attorney General is just one matter. If the Attorney General is to be made free to provide the Government with details of the entire list of runners in the case with a view to giving advice as to whether, over a number of shortlists which the Government may receive, say, for the High Court or the Court of Appeal, there...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: The Leader is being monitored in offices so he had better keep going.

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I join in the general expression of Christmas good wishes and thanks to the staff of the Seanad Office and to all of the staff of the Houses of the Oireachtas Service for the wonderful work they do for us in this establishment. On the Order of Business yesterday, Senator Colm Burke referred to a nameless Deputy - he was being very careful - who, in a committee session, queried the status and...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I remind that Deputy, who was criticising me on that occasion, that I received 5,661 first preferences and 15% of the vote in my constituency.

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: If we are going to compare first preferences, all I want to say is that I look forward to the time when this House is reformed and many more of us will be in a position to dismiss remarks of that kind. On a more serious note, in respect of the person in question, there is a grinch associated with Christmas but it is not necessary to be a grinch the other 364 days of the year as well.

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: To echo what Senator Leyden said, and to be serious about this, I am hearing a report today that a member of our Judiciary is being held at gunpoint by a dissatisfied litigant. The courts of our country hand down orders on foot of the Constitution. They apply the law very fairly. We uphold the State and we must uphold the Judiciary. Nobody can dine àla cartein respect of loyalty to...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: If possession orders are made, they are, invariably, executed with the greatest courtesy and understanding afforded to the people affected by them. Multiple appointments are made and letters delivered but, in the end, the law must be upheld and nobody, whether possessing a baseball bat or a gun or anything else, is entitled to take the law into his or her own hands. There is only one law...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I have said all I wanted to say on the amendment.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: To some extent, the amendments in the name of Senator Bacik and her colleagues and my amendments are, if not diametric opposites, quite different in some respects. The effect of section 39, as it currently stands, is that a person, including a person who is, for the time being, a serving judge or relevant officeholder, who wishes to be considered for appointment to judicial office is obliged...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: Except the application under section 39(2) must be pursuant to-----

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: In response to that invitation, I agree with the Minister in one sense that there are good and sound reasons the presidencies of those three courts should have nothing to do with the commission. I agree with him on that very bare proposition. I go one stage further and say I can see no reason the commission should have anything to do with the selection of somebody to be an ordinary judge of...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: Formally or informally, it does not make much difference; if someone gets the tap on the shoulder it is the same thing. If the Attorney General asks someone to put their name forward for consideration, implicit in that is confidence that they are not wasting their time in doing so. I go one stage further. When that happened in cases of which I had experience, I was always very careful...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: I think I am right in saying that the Minister has said that any amendment of this Bill, which had the effect of saying that in the case of ordinary appointments to the Court of Appeal from the High Court or to the Supreme Court from the High Court or Court of Appeal, to exempt those type of appointments from the purview of the commission would be against the spirit of this Bill. I am glad...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Dec 2018)

Michael McDowell: Does the Minister think that actually means they will be told whether they were short-listed?