Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Will the Leader ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality to come to the House to explain the appointment or non-appointment of new judges? When the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil parties made the confidence and supply agreement, which was published, it was provided that all agreements with Independent Deputies and other political parties would be published in full. We read, however, in the newspapers over the past couple of days that the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, believes he has an agreement with the Government that no new judges will be appointed until a Bill, which has not yet even received pre-legislative scrutiny and the terms of which will be highly controversial if they are published in the form adumbrated at the moment and will raise serious constitutional issues, is passed. That Bill must be passed before any further judges can be appointed by reason of an agreement which one Minister seems to have extorted from the rest of the Cabinet.

That is constitutionally wrong. The Constitution provides that it is the Executive’s function to advise the President to appoint judges. This is not an academic issue. It is an issue of significant importance because the President of the High Court a few days ago suspended reforms he had brought in for want of judicial resources to implement them. This means that the ordinary business of the courts is being affected by this blackmail deal that seems to have been done privately with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, to the effect that no new judges can be appointed until the Houses of the Oireachtas consider a new Bill.It ignores completely the fact that this is a minority Government. It does not have the capacity to push through its Bill. Deputy O'Callaghan has his own proposals on this matter in the form of a Bill which he has published. It is profoundly wrong that one member of Government should hijack the appointment of judges in this way.