Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will do so. Let us look at the amendment. The Minister said he read this carefully. There is not one word about the Circuit Court or District Court in it. The proposed new section states:

Notwithstanding the provisions ofsection 40, nothing in this Act affects, limits or inhibits the right of the Government in any case where it advises the President to appoint any member of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, or the High Court to any judicial office in any of those courts, at its discretion, to further advise the President to appoint any other member of those courts to the vacancy thereby created without seeking any recommendation from the Commission.

It expressly excludes Circuit Court and District Court judges from its ambit. The Minister accuses me of dramatising this by inventing the notion that somehow I was arguing that vacancies would arise in the District Court and, I presume, in the Circuit Court, which is simply wrong. I have never done that and the amendment does not contemplate it. It is a total distortion on the part of the Minister to lay that at my feet and say I am dramatising the matter. Of course it would be totally ridiculous for somebody in this House to say this might have implications for a vacancy in the District Court. The only person who has raised that ridiculous possibility this evening is the Minister. It was not me.

I am also interested in the Minister's statement that Senator Craughwell is ignoring amendment No. 87b in his own name. If we are to infer from the statement that the amendment enjoys the support of the Minister, I would like some clarity as to whether that is the case. If we were confident the Minister would support that amendment, we would not be making some of the points we are making about this specific amendment. However, we have had no signal whatever that the Minister has adopted it. There is certainly no asterisk on this list to suggest amendment No. 87b enjoys the support of the Minister and would proceed as a Government amendment. If the Minister is now signalling that the points we are making are redundant because he proposes to accept the substance of amendment No. 87b, could we hear that?