Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Who appoints the people who appoint? Let us consider also the issue of having laypersons appointed by different organisations or Ministers. How are those organisations put together and how are those people given those jobs? There is layer upon layer of appointments that come into question in view of the concept put forward by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport's. Our amendment proposes that people who actually have an idea of how the legal system works, practically rather than just theoretically, be selected.

GRECO had on-site evaluation with representatives and interlocutors from civil society and the Judiciary, including the executive branches of the Bar of Ireland, the Law Society of Ireland and the prosecution services. The GRECO report states:

As reflected in the Evaluation Report, it is noteworthy that the perception of a “politicised” recruitment system was not aimed at the pre-selection procedure carried out by JAAB, but rather at the fact that the JAAB, a body of the judiciary, had to produce a list of candidates (at least seven) without priority and sometimes much longer lists without any order of priority to the government for its final appointment. Consequently, the potential risk of political lobbying [political lobbying was addressed in the Bill, which we welcome] and favouritism referred to in the report was in the second stage, i.e. once the list of candidates had been established and handed to the Government for decision.

The report states that GRECO takes note of the information provided by the Government as well as by the representative of the Judiciary. The Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017, which is currently in the parliamentary process, is aimed at reforming the system. It is about changing the system; it does not necessarily mean it will make it better. It is changing it because of one individual's point of view and a commitment in a programme for Government. I wish some of the other commitments in the programme for Government were focused on more than the one before us today.

The report states that it would appear that there is no disagreement in Ireland that all appointments of judges should be based on merit - that is what happens with the Cabinet, and former Senator Ross's appointment to the Cabinet was based on merit - following a pre-selection process and that the selection should lead to a limited number of candidates to be submitted to the Executive for a final decision. What was pointed out then was that the Government's proposal goes beyond that as it is proposed that the establishment of a new commission, which as I pointed out, will cost about €1 million a year as opposed to the current cost of €10,000 a year-----