Results 3,461-3,480 of 18,727 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: It is simply a question of timing. There is no need for us to continue playing blind man's buff on legislation if this report is being kept secret. What is the point of the Government sitting on the report and not releasing it when it would inform and advise us on what we should or should not do with our legislative time? I appeal through the Leader to the members of the Government to stop...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: I want to be orderly. I accept the ruling of the Chair.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, did the deal for him.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: I believe it was a verbal slip.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: He said the vote was a pity.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: Senator Ruane's amendment seeks to impose a statutory definition on the term "diversity", which is an inclusive definition. She is proposing that the term "diversity" should mean "a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, interests and perspectives, reflective of the diverse nature of Irish society and including but not limited to socio-economic status, gender, race, ethnicity, minority...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: Curiously, religion is one of the things that is omitted here, which is interesting.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: Maybe that reflects our evolving society. That one factor for seeking diversity which was ingrained in the practice, but not in the law, is now to be omitted under this definition. The other thing is that the terms "minority groups" and "the majority group" are concerning. Who is the majority group? Is there a thing called the majority group?

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: Who is the majority group in our society? Is it liberals or conservatives?

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: I do not identify with the use of the phrase "minority groups" and "the majority group" as if there is some big herd of people who constitute the majority group of Irish society and who can be identified and remembered by a committee when it is making appointments. Then we come to socioeconomic status. If a person had been practising for many years in the Law Library or as a solicitor or if...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: Such a person is highly unlikely to be personally socioeconomically on the deprived end of the scale. It is highly unlikely. Such a person may have come from a socioeconomically challenged background. I know various judges, one of whom was born in Coolock and another who was a very successful judge – I will not mention them by name in order not to embarrass them – but who was...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: I am sorry and I move the adjournment.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: I am not opposed to diversity. I am just worried about this particular amendment and whether it will achieve what it sets out to achieve. If we say that diversity is to be taken into account by the commission and if we define diversity in the manner suggested by Senator Ruane, we impose an obligation on the commission to consider the issues set out in her definition that it must ask...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: Is it to be the case that someone is to be cross-examined or required to provide information on his or her socioeconomic status and asked if he or she owes money to a bank or if he or she is wealthy because his or her parents or grandparents were wealthy landowners or because his or her mother or father made it big in this boom or that? Is this a matter which is seriously to be taken into...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: That is fair enough. What is this the alternative to? The Minister, Deputy Ross, wanted all judicial appointments in future to be sanctioned by an Oireachtas committee on which the Government of the day would be in a minority. That is what he wanted to be put into the Constitution, weird though it was. We now have a situation where the Government is a minority on virtually everything, but...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: It does not. If this commission is supposed to be impartial, fair and reasonable in the way it selects judges, is it not extraordinary that, from among its own members, it cannot select a chairperson who is, or has been, a lawyer or a judge? Is that not an extraordinary disqualification to impose upon a group which is supposed to be impartial in every other way in respect of the appointment...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: The Labour Party amendment, in defining those in "the service of the State" as those in particular categories, is correct. In those circumstances I strongly believe that Senator Ruane should withdraw her amendment and I ask her to do so. I will not vote against it. I do not know whether the Government would accept it in any event. In respect of the second amendment, I urge Members of this...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: I do.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: I am taking the Senator's amendment seriously.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)

Michael McDowell: If I did not take the Senator's point seriously, I would not have addressed it.