Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As I said, it has been said that the time debating this legislation has damaged the reputation of the Seanad and, by implication, the reputation of all Members of the Seanad. While I do not know where the Leader has formed this view or what papers he is reading, since the commencement of debate in the Seanad, the following bodies have expressed their views. The Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption questioned whether the Bill was in line with European standards and whether it secured judicial independence. The European Commission, in a report in March 2018, was definitive in its view, which it stated explicitly, that the Bill was not in line with European standards. In an editorial published in November 2018, The Irish Timesstated: "It is still not too late for the Government to scrap the ill-advised Judicial Appointments Bill being foisted on the country at the whim of the Minister for Transport".