Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----diversity, or lack of diversity, or where he stands in the spectrum of social diversity in Ireland. Those things may not be of interest to them and yet those are the criteria which we are saying must be the basis of him being, or not being, on the shortlist.

I asked the Minister to inform me whether it is a central pillar of Government policy that existing members of the High Court must apply to the judicial appointments commission to be considered by the Cabinet for promotion to the Supreme Court, and whether that is a cornerstone of this legislation on which the Minister and Government will not budge.

I asked the Minister to indicate again whether he is open to reconsidering whether the Attorney General should be in a position to inform the Cabinet of those ready and willing to be appointed even though they have not been shortlisted - in other words, the people who have been applicants, have displayed an interest in appointment to a particular office and who have not been shortlisted for consideration by the Government. On those two points the constitutionality of this legislation depends. If the Government goes down the road of forcing existing judges to submit themselves to an evaluation by a group of people other than a government, one is not merely on the thinnest of ice but one is up to one's ears in constitutional water. Likewise, if one maintains the proposition that the Government cannot know who among the existing Judiciary is ready and willing to serve but has not been shortlisted, then one is, equally, up to one's ears in constitutional water. We are not allowed know the inner workings of the Cabinet and we are not allowed to know the inner workings of individual Ministers' minds on this issue. Unless there is some willingness to engage on those two issues, then this legislation is fundamentally flawed from a constitutional perspective.