Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Conceding this idea of a lay majority goes against the grain. That is not my view, it is that of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, who stated, "It was certainly resisted, very strongly, by the entire Fine Gael delegation." He stated that, so why should we not trust him at least in that regard? Is he to be believed? He is to be believed because he was boasting about it as one of his great achievements.

There is something else I wish to add. The excerpts from the GRECO report that have been read into the record are fine as far as they go. The report indicates that the Government had informed GRECO that it had engaged in a process of dialogue with the Judiciary in respect of the changes to this Bill. GRECO quotes the Judiciary as denying this and it expressed concern about that fact. I do not know where the truth lies. However, I do not believe that the Judiciary, if it had been the subject of intensive consultation, would have told GRECO that it had not been. There is a danger here that an effort was made to spin GRECO into believing that the original version of the Bill was one thing but that this was something entirely different, and that the Judiciary was consulted on it and was more or less all right with the idea. That is not the case. The Judiciary has rightly said that the lay majority idea is misconceived and that the way in which a lay majority will operate is dangerous to the independence of the Judiciary. I agree with that proposition.

On the previous occasion, we discussed the manner in which the people who apply to sit on this body will be remunerated, the terms of their appointment and the extent of their duties. In reply to my queries on that, the Minister said that he imagined they would be remunerated in a similar way to other people who are appointed to State boards. For a start, there are State boards and there are other State boards. Are we talking about a €12,000 salary for the chairperson of this group or a €25,000 salary? Are we talking about €9,000 or €18,000 or €20,000 for board members? If there are 51 judicial appointments every year and there is a serious interview process relating to each of them, with the members of the commission seriously engaged in such interviewing and assessment processes and devoting considerable time to examining the merits and demerits of a number of people, giving them an emolument of €9,000 per year for such activity would be entirely wrong.With regard to this section and having had time to think about this, I ask the Minister to tell us what he believes he will pay these people to do this job. We are entitled to know because it will affect the amount of time they have and their willingness to apply themselves unreservedly to what is going to be a very complex process.

In the consideration of the next section, I will come to the idea of having outside agencies do preliminary vetting and having private enterprise bodies sift through applications in order to advise the commission on who is or is not appropriate for appointment or for selection for interview by the commission. It is a really deep concern of mine that we are being asked not merely to appoint lay persons, but to appoint lay persons who will in turn appoint independent for-profit contractors to go through all the applications and weed out the people they think are unsuitable. That is really a shocking idea. Is its purpose to keep down staff costs on the commission, to keep them under control and to offer cut-price contracts to unidentified private enterprise bodies to come up with quick evaluations as to whether a given candidate does or does not merit further consideration from the board?