Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This cannot apply where the Minister says, "I anticipate that we will choose this judge; therefore, I will ask the commission to seek applications for the vacancy she will leave behind her." That is not provided for in this legislation and it will not work.

There is method in people's madness sometimes and there are reasons things are as they are. One very good reason the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board procedure did not apply to serving judges is that it enabled a Government to recommend the appointment of a certain judge to a certain position on a given day, the consequence of which would be two further vacancies down the ladder, and to fill those vacancies that day, and that would be the end of the matter. The Government did not have to start successive advertised processes each time each of the vacancies on that ladder was filled.

Let us take the example of an ordinary judge of the Supreme Court who is appointed to fill a vacancy as Chief Justice, which is a perfectly likely scenario. There has been for some stupid reason a shortlist of three. The Government has decided to appoint one of the serving ordinary judges of the Supreme Court to the position of Chief Justice. The result is that there is a vacancy for an ordinary judge of the Supreme Court. The Government cannot, according to this Bill, appoint a judge from the Court of Appeal to that position and appoint someone else to the resultant vacant position in the Court of Appeal and keep those courts functioning. At present this is exactly what the Government does. It does not just create holes and then sit down and ask, "God, what will we do about filling them?" It makes the judicial appointments. If the procedures have been changed-----