Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I also welcome this short Bill which, although small in content, is not inconsequential in that the number of judges we have has a bearing on the administration of justice, its efficiency and effectiveness. The Bill will increase the number of judges by four each in the High Court and Circuit Court and six in the District Court.

As the Minister of State outlined in his speech, all Senators acknowledge the Judiciary has played a pivotal role in the development of the State and provides a service which adds to the security of the State which is essential. In general, the Judiciary has behaved and operated quite well during the period since our independence.

We had debates about aspects of sentencing and it goes without saying that the Judiciary must be independent of the Executive. In any democracy this is absolutely essential. However, unlike some people, I do not subscribe to the notion that this independence means total unaccountability. This does not follow as a consequence of being independent. Judges should be accountable. However, we do not have in place any appropriate mechanisms to deal with this. I will return to this point later.

The Courts Service was acknowledged by the Minister of State as having made certain changes which will improve and enhance the system. The hours worked within the courts and the number of sitting days must be examined. We can see the salaries paid to the various categories of judges are quite generous. The argument is often made that because people leave lucrative legal practices salaries should be high to attract them. Many judges wait until later in life to take up the position and I think it is often a way to provide a pension for themselves after retirement. There is nothing specifically wrong with this. However, such salaries should command productivity, a word not often referred to in the public service, from the people engaged.

Benchmarking has been referred to by one of my colleagues as being like going up to an ATM. Unfortunately he was right as many people got pay increases without having made any greater input into the work or services being provided to the public. I hope if there is any further benchmarking we will be far more discriminating in the manner in which it is applied.

In this instance, benchmarking must consider how the salaries of judges here compare with counterparts in other countries, particularly within the European Union. For example, I understand the salary of the Chief Justice of Ireland is greater than the salary of the Chief Justice of the United States, which raises its own questions.

This is relevant right across the public service, and I state this as we now hear of clouds possibly appearing on the economic horizon. The cost of houses is stabilising, which is good, but the number of units being built is falling. In our planning we must ensure that this type of current expenditure — which I would claim as being unproductive because I come from a business background — is kept on a tight rein. The future of the economy will depend to a large extent on how we control such expenditure within the public services. I will not go further into the issue now as it would be inappropriate.

We can now see high-profile segments of our public service trying to extract even greater payment from the public purse, despite significant increases in recent years being achieved by all.