Results 221-240 of 18,436 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: This amendment is designed to cure a loophole in the legislation, namely, that the provisions on non-disclosure of the information relating to the appointments process are inadequate and have the effect of rendering some of the information capable of being published. If one looks at sections 29 and 30, the former restricts the revelation of material by a person who is a member of the...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: They might be worried now all right. I am perfectly free to put that file out on television because it is possible other people committed no offence. Maybe they left it on a bus or did something stupid like send it to a shredder and it did not get shredded. Any person in the community is free to divulge that same information and make it public.If we get to the stage that documentation...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: I regret that response from the Minister. To compare this to Cabinet confidentiality is nonsensical. Cabinet confidentiality applies to many things and it can be breached by a Minister who just briefs a journalist and the journalist is free to say that the Green Party at Cabinet was opposed to this, the Fianna Fáil members were opposed to that or the Fine Gael members supported...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: To be published means it is in the newspapers.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: No.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: The person who leaks it to another individual, the person who leaves it on the street and the person who puts it in a brown envelope and gives it to a journalist does very little damage. It is the person who publishes it who does all the damage.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 25a: In page 27, line 18, to delete “An applicant” and substitute “A person, including an applicant,”.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: This amendment seeks to extend what is provided for on page 27, line 18 to any person, not merely an applicant. The present text reads that an applicant shall not, in relation to the process of selection and recommendation, including any step and so on, canvas or attempt to influence part of the decision. Again, is it legitimate for the applicant’s wife or husband to do it? Is it...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: It now means, for instance, that a judge who is pally with another judge is free to go to judges who are on the Judicial Appointments Commission and say, “Judge Michael McDowell is really the person we need”, so anybody is entitled to canvass in my favour except me or somebody I procure to do it. Is that really what the Minister wants, namely, that members of the Judiciary can...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: That is the purpose. If that is the purpose, then let us make it very clear that by simply changing two words, any person who does that, including an applicant, commits that offence. That will stop all canvassing of the kind the Minister is trying to stop. Again, there is a mulishness in regard to this Bill. No amendments at all are taken from this side of the House – nothing. If...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: I am replying. I think I am entitled to a reply.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: I am entitled to reply to what I heard. The Minister said it is alright for ten judges to go to the Chief Justice and lobby on behalf of one of their colleagues to be appointed. She said it would be spreading the net too wide to stop that. She said it is open to people to write to the commission, who have nothing to do with the judge, urging it to appoint one person rather than another....

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 26: In page 28, between lines 28 and 29, to insert the following: "Right of Government to advise President: consequential vacancies 43.Nothing in this Part affects, limits or inhibits the right of the Government in any case where it advises the President to appoint any member of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, or the High Court to any judicial office in any...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: Again, the purpose of this amendment is to rescue the Bill from nonsense. It was pointed out to the then Minister, Deputy Flanagan, that the previous Bill contained the same mistake. If the Government appoints a member of the Court of Appeal or an ordinary member of the Supreme Court to be Chief Justice, a string of vacancies can arise as a result. At present, it is perfectly open to the...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: It does not interview anyone.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: Section 43(2) reads: "An application for recommendation ... shall not be made ... otherwise than pursuant to an invitation issued under section 42."A section 42 invitation can arise only where the Minister requests the commission to make recommendations for appointment to a judicial office where a judicial office stands vacant or he or she reasonably anticipates that there will be a vacancy...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 27a: In page 32, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following: "(6) The Commission shall not recommend any person for appointment to judicial office in the State unless it is satisfied that the person is a citizen of Ireland.".

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 28: In page 34, to delete lines 1 to 7 and substitute the following: “Appointments to judicial office in the State: recommended persons to be first considered 51.(1) In advising the President in relation to the appointment of a person to judicial office in the State, the Government shall first consider for appointment those persons who have been recommended by...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: These two amendments go to the heart of this legislation. The Government has chosen today to guillotine this debate and to bring it to a close. In effect, this legislation proposes to make it unlawful for the Government of the day to appoint anybody to any judicial office unless that person has been shortlisted by a group of eight people, four of whom are judges and four of whom are...

Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Committee Work Programme (4 Jul 2023)

Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister of State and offer our apology for delaying him. I will just make one point because I have to be elsewhere. We are very anxious the terms of reference of the committee should be fully respected and that draft statutory instruments should be made available to us. When we use the term “draft statutory instruments”, we do not want somebody saying there is...