Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps the word "lay" has a negative connotation, but I am absolutely fine with non-legal people being members of the commission. It makes total sense to me. Potentially, I may be a double pariah because the legislation will mean that, in the future, I, as a solicitor and a former politician, will not have the integrity or objectivity to chair the committee. It is not necessarily that I want to chair any commission, but the intention behind the Bill leaves me a little unstuck. If the Bill did a huge service to the Judiciary, the State and the people, I am objective enough to be able to appreciate that potential benefit. Essentially, however, it states that people like Senators Burke, Mullen, Clifford-Lee and McDowell, who has been Attorney General and Minister with responsibility for justice, or the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, would not have the necessary objectivity or integrity or whatever it is that is implied here. Whatever about us saying the chair could be chosen by the commission, or that the chair could be either a non-legal or legal person, I have a difficulty with actively excluding legal people from being chair.