Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

No amendments to section 23 have been tabled. The purpose of the section is to give authority to the Minister to advance to the judicial appointments commission, if and when it is established, out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas, such amounts as the Minister of Justice and Equality may, with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, determine for the purposes of expenditure by the commission in the performance of its functions. Subsection (2) states this section is in addition to any provision made by the Act with regard to the provision of funding for a particular purpose. I will come to subsection 2 in due course. It is very important that the House should know precisely what it is doing by authorising this section to be part of the Bill. What we are doing is assenting to a major haemorrhage on the public Exchequer to fund what, in my strong view, is a totally redundant body.