Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to respond to the point the Minister made about the Attorney General. I support the presence of the Attorney General on the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, JAAB, as on the commission. I am simply making a point related to some of the academic debate internationally, which I will not go into here, about whether judicial appointment processes should be entirely divorced from political decision-making or whether they should have some input that is political with a small "p". That is the bigger debate about the presence of the Government's legal adviser on judicial appointments bodies. I do support that, as others have, and as we have voted on already in this House. I welcome the clear response from the Minister that the Attorney General will be bound by sections 27 and 28. I wish to ask just one question which did not come out clearly from previous debates. Does that differ from the current position under the JAAB, and how does it differ? That is an important point.