Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is job of work to be done, but it is more than that. It is a constitutional office, and one cannot just apply ordinary employment criteria to it because of this. One cannot ask the Government to regard it as equivalent to the appointment of someone as manager of Aer Lingus or something like that.It is not like that. One cannot say that there should be a level playing pitch or there should be transparency. One cannot say that we can farm out a preliminary evaluation of these people to experts. That is not possible in the case of a constitutional law, nor is it desirable, and it is going to produce worse judges.

That is what I have to say about these amendments and I will not delay the House any further. I am deeply disappointed, at one level, that the Minister will not accept these amendments but I am encouraged, at another level, because it shows that what is happening is an unconstitutional onslaught on the Executive's function.