Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes, amendment No. 67. It is intended to eliminate the issue of consultants and advisers because, as I said, for the reasons I gave, it is inappropriate, especially when there are large numbers of applicants who might not be known or known well to any of the members of the Judiciary, the legal practitioner members or the lay members. There may be people who are completely unknown to any of the people on the commission. The same happened in the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board. People applied and there was complete unawareness of the kind of person they were. Nobody on the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board actually knew who they were or could put a face to the name. They were simply looking at an application form in the common forum. That is what amendment No. 67 is all about.

In amendment No. 68 which clearly is an alternative the Minister is proposing to delete line 40 on page 20 and line 1 on page 21 and substitute the word "commission".I am not quite clear about how that will read. Perhaps I am misreading what would be left.