Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I believe we will be here all night in any event. Subsection (8) circumscribes the purposes for which such contracts or arrangements, or appointment of consultants or advisers may be made by the commission, namely, to advise or assist in the preliminary stages of a selection procedure or provide assessments of individual applicant suitability to assist the commission in making decisions in selection procedures. This is far from the type of scenario that was painted here before the House last evening. It very specifically states that the power cannot be used for consultants to do any other issue or matter or thing or to stray beyond what is the clearly and narrowly defined role and function that they will have.

The other subsections provide for the payment of fees to consultants and the setting of periods of engagement in terms and conditions. We have an extraordinary situation here over the last number of evenings where on the one hand the Bill is being criticised for costing too much money, and on the other there is not sufficient funding available to allow the import of the Bill to have effect. We cannot have it both ways. We either want a piece of working legislation that is adequately funded or we do not. We will ultimately have a piece of legislation here that is constitutionally sound, that is legally robust, - which is what we are doing now - that will be workable and will do its job in an efficient and effective way.

We have heard much talk - indeed we heard it again last night - about quangos. Suggestions being made that the new commission is being set up as some sort of engorged bureaucracy in a way that is disproportionate to the task which the commission is to carry out. This is extraordinary and an exaggeration in many respects. It was precisely for the reason of avoiding the commission having to take on a lot of employees who might be HR, recruitment, and selection procedure experts, that we put these provisions in the Bill. The idea behind these provisions as to the consultants, the advisers or the contracts with persons is where the new commission needs expert assistance, at a key stage in the process, it can hire on a short-term contract basis, committing it only to the variable costs from time to time where expenditure is necessary, rather than having the fixed term costs of long-term employees. This is perfectly normal in the public service and I will outline a few examples.

It would be normal enough, for example, in the case of the District Court, as referred to by Senator McDowell. It could well be that one may have applications in excess of 100 for one position. The commission will be a small, professional but lean organisation, with a director and a small secretariat that would be geared around the running of the competitions and providing support for the commission and its procedures committee. It is the procedures committee that will ultimately draw up the technical arrangements for the interview process, for instance, in the context of best practice. When it come to the matter of shortlisting and the screening for eligibility for competitions such as for the District Court where there are large numbers, I believe it is not only inevitable, but also very advisable that there will be expert help at hand. I do not see anything untoward or illegal about that or anything that warrants Senators becoming exercised in the manner in which they have. That is the potential that we are providing for here.

If we look at the alternative, the commission will have expert employees who are being paid all of the time, and only need to switch in where there is a large volume of applications. That will not happen too often.In the region of between 50 and 60 appointments are made each year across the courts. I do not believe it makes sense, economically or otherwise, to have a range of expert employees on a full-time basis. I ask Members to recall that one of the main purposes of the Bill is to professionalise the selection process that is used to determine who to recommend for appointment to judicial office. That means access will be needed to people with expertise to advise and assist the commission in designing and operating the selection processes. This is best done by way of expert assistance. That is acknowledged not only in this Bill but in other similar legislation. We are looking at the design of competency models, profiles for jobs, interviews or test processes where applicable. I am not sure of the extent to which psychiatric help will be employed, but this is one of the examples I have heard tossed around. To my mind, that is an exaggeration, to say the least.