Results 3,481-3,500 of 18,727 for speaker:Michael McDowell
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: Is the Senator in a hurry?
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: Acting Chairman, I am accused of------
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: It was today.
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: It does not have that effect. It says that a lay person could be the chairperson.
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: We are not saying that the chairperson must be a judge or legal person.
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: Perhaps the chairperson could be a former lawyer or somebody who knows something about the judicial system.
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: Who made the accusations of cronyism? It was a certain person who sits at a certain table with the Minister.
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: On what Senator Wilson has just said, the definition of a layperson in section 2 is a person who does not hold and never held judicial office, who is not and never has been the Attorney General, DPP, Chief State Solicitor or a law officer and who was not a practising barrister or solicitor in the relevant period specified by subsection 2, that is, 15 years. It is interesting that a...
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: Exactly. She has been practising in the past 15 years so she may be in trouble.
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: Some of her colleagues in Trinity College would be laypersons for the purpose of this, and yet would be in a position, curiously, to determine whether other laypersons, being legal academics, should or should not be recommended, which is an oddity in the way the legislation is drafted. I want to mention one thing to Senator Ruane. I am not filibustering. I am taking reasonable time to...
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: I will not get sucked into anything. I did not do that. I did not write a chapter of a book suggesting these were the people, the Judiciary, who had wrecked this State, and that they were a group of cronies selected by their crony friends and they had wrecked this State. I never did that. Let it be remembered on the floor of the House that he did do that. One might state in this Chamber...
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: People accuse me of playing the man rather than the ball but I did not write that chapter in a book. Moreover, and this is the important point, before the Minister was ever the Minister with responsibility for justice I did not spend two years vetoing appointments and refusing to fill vacancies in the court system until it almost ground to a complete halt because of my determination to push...
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: -----my views were not complied with-----
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: I am replying to the proposition that I was playing the man and not the ball. I am saying these are the objective facts; not subjective facts. These are the objective facts and the people of Ireland know this to be the case. We can wallpaper over these cracks all we like, but it is true, as Senators Craughwell and Boyhan have said, that the Minister's colleagues in the Oireachtas know this...
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: -----to be the lay members of this commission - whether they are to be in the majority or the minority - he will be at liberty to choose the best person among them for the job, without reference to whether that person is a lawyer or judge or was within the relevant time period. I will reiterate that it is amazing that a legal academic will be on the inside track to be appointed and will also...
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: Will it be next Tuesday?
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: If the Minister has not seen it, how can he tell Senator Craughwell he will not be disappointed?
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: Would be disappointed.
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: He has not read it.
- Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (3 Jul 2018)
Michael McDowell: I will be brief. Senator Higgins is ignoring the huge difference between Committee Stage and Report Stage. Senators can speak just once on amendments that are proposed on Report Stage, and that is the end of the matter. The time for us to look at criticisms of this legislation by GRECO, if there are such criticisms, is on Committee Stage.