Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will make another point. There is nothing wrong with me asking this, and the Minister should answer now. Will these people be remunerated, and how?

This is the point that I want to have teased out. What kind of commitment will people have to make to this institution? If I am one of the five, seven, or whatever number of lay people we arrive at in the end, will I be there once a week, or sometimes for three days in a row? Will I have to set aside a week, or three weeks if I am on an interview committee, to listen to 60 or 80 people going through an interview process? This is something that nobody has bothered to tell us. Because I am close to somebody who is in academia, I know that the commitment involved in promotion boards in academia is significant. One cannot just turn up and spend a half an hour on it. One has to go through the entire process, ask the same questions and be fair to everybody. Who will put their hand up to do this, and who will have the time to do this? Will they be paid for it? If they are not paid for it, we are effectively saying that people whose time is valuable will have to make a significant sacrifice to be there. Will their employers let them off to do this? Will self-employed people get anything for spending a week doing interviews? When I say "self-employed", I am not thinking of barristers. Let us go down the track of looking at other people who are self-employed, people who own garages and so on. Will they be remunerated for what they do in this role? One aspect I find unclear about the package we are being sold is the terms of engagement these people will be asked to sign up to.Will they have to put aside a month a year to carry out these functions?

When I was Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, a huge number of people sought appointment to the District Court. When a District Court vacancy came up sometimes there were 120 applications from people who had the requisite qualifications. A problem we face is the legislation seems to propose that we could bring in outside contractors and consultants to do a winnowing-out process, which is very dubious. It is the subject of later amendments. Will we say that some agency will look at the 120 applicants and short-list it down to 19? Who will they be? I do not get a clear picture of how it is all intended to operate. In fairness to the Minister, in this context there must be something rather than nothing. It is the political commitment made by the Government in its programme for Government. I accept that is the commitment but I want to see a picture of how it will work. Who will be the laypersons? How will they be remunerated? What is the time commitment expected of each of them? Who does the Minister expect will apply to the Public Appointments Service to get these positions? What would motivate them to do it?

I fully accept what Senator Ruane has said. It is wrong to demonise every layperson as a potential subversive or crank or sleeper for Opus Dei or whatever it is. It is wrong to be suspicious of all lay involvement. That point is very true but I am not trying to convey such a suggestion. I am asking how the machine will work. With regard to the appointment of a District Court judge, for example, involving the interviewing of 30 candidates, who will do it? Will it be five, three or two of them? Will they spend weeks doing it? Will they break into parallel structures and do it? When there is a vacancy in the High Court and 60 solicitors and barristers apply for it, who will interview them all? Will the contractor or consultant cut them down to a shortlist of ten and tell us not to worry about the others, that they did not meet some criterion a third outside agency set for deciding who would be reasonably good people to appoint? Will something like seniority be relevant? Could they winnow out people who just qualify for appointment with 11 years' practice because there are people with 20 years' practice? Could they wipe out the junior people on the list? I want to know how it is proposed the system will work.

Having served on the JAAB and as Minister, I am aware of its shortcomings. It was not perfect by any means. It never had interviews and just worked on a round-the-table examination of applications. That is the way it worked. It certainly would never have contemplated having interviews or the Public Appointments Service appointment criteria. It took a run of the JAAB and said, for example, that 12 or 15 people were suitable for appointment as a District Court judge and it recommended them. That is the kind of thing it did. If we are to do something very different and grade people, for example if Senator Conway, Senator Noone and I are the three people applying and they put Senator Noone first, Senator Conway second and me third, it has to be done by reference to criteria. There cannot be three sub-committees and different people interviewing making those kinds of decisions.

I am not trying to be obstructive when I say it really mystifies me as to how the commission is supposed to operate. It mystifies me as to what commitment will be involved. If we cannot say in advance what the commitment is likely to be, we cannot make a fair judgment about what kind of remuneration will have to be offered to the people who participate in the process. We have had silence on that topic thus far. I have not even seen a sketch of these matters laid out in public. We are entitled to hear the Minister's thought process on how he sees it developing so we can decide what the process is likely to be. The commission is supposed to set up its own procedures committee. It can set up sub-committees. It can do all sorts of things but we have no real picture of how this new body is supposed to operate. We know that in all the relevant sub-committees, laypersons will be in a majority according to the legislation. That may be a good thing or a bad thing; that is for another amendment. The point I am making is I would love to know what is expected of these people if they turn up.

Let us remember the situation concerning jurors. A self-employed person cannot afford to be a juror. Jurors get nothing for their efforts. The first thing they do is go up to the judge and ask to be excused because, for example, they run a garage and have one employee. If such a person is put on a jury for three weeks the business will close down so he or she is let off. That is the way the system works. The jury system is biased towards employees whose employers will let them off and towards people who have time on their hands and can say, for example, they will deal with the David Drumm trial even though the judge has warned the trial could go on for 60 to 80 days. A lot of people cannot do that. For an awful lot of people, it would mean financial ruin. A retired person can do it. An unemployed person who is interested and patriotic enough to serve-----