Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have said most of what I wanted to say about the whole question of the sitting Judiciary being required to apply to a body which is not the Government for consideration to be appointed to positions in the Supreme Court or Court of Appeal or to the presidencies of those courts. I will ask the Minister a simple, factual question. As I understood it, a procedure was recently put in place whereby judges who were interested in promotion to vacancies which were arising or had arisen could inform either the Secretary to the Government or the Attorney General in writing of their interest in being so promoted in order that their names would be put before the Cabinet. Is it proposed that this procedure be discontinued from now on as amounting to some kind of canvassing or will it continue under this legislation? If it is proposed that it be discontinued, there would be certain implications arising from that. It is an informal arrangement with no legislative basis, which seeks to address the problem of sitting judges writing long letters to politicians extolling their own virtues. I have no problem with that. Members of the Judiciary do not have to do a sales job on themselves to members of Government. For this reason, the new arrangement under which they indicated to the Secretary to the Government their willingness to serve in a position which was vacant or about to become vacant was put in place. Is this system still in existence? If so, will it be ended if the requirement that every judge apply to the judicial appointments commission for every promotional vacancy comes into place?