Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

It is a matter for the president of each court as to whether a judge should be allowed leave for any purpose and how the sittings of the court should be arranged to accommodate a judge who has a particular need of the type mentioned by the Senator. It is best left in its current form rather than put into statutory form. The Judicial Appointments Advisory Board generally operates on the basis that nobody is appointed to the Bench until he or she is over 40. Many women have children in their 40s, but it may not be as widespread a phenomenon as the Senator imagines. The general rule that people are not appointed as a judge before 40 is due to the feeling that 20 years is a long time to be an arbitral judge on the Bench and 30 years is an even longer time. If any error is made in appointments in terms of temperament or suitability, people in their 20s or 30s will suffer the consequence for a long time.