Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There was some debate between us as to whether the word "may", where it appears for the second time in the proposed section 45(1), would create a problem. I will leave it to my colleague Senator Norris to confirm this, but I believe we had all agreed that the words "the Commission shall" in subsection (2) removed any element of doubt.

On the Minister prescribing a time period, we did not want to leave the process open-ended. Having sat on interview boards for public appointments, the Minister will be aware of the difficulties in bringing a board together, getting agreement on the advertisement to be placed and deciding the marking scheme to be applied and the questions to be asked. As appointments are made to the Supreme Court, it may be necessary for the court to call on expertise in criminal law, corporate law and so on. All of these matters give rise to the possibility of an appeal. If one tries to scope the advertisement in a particular direction, one is automatically excluding other people. This will cause serious problems. Our main concern is that we not leave the process open-ended, whereby a post will be left unfilled for an extraordinary length of time.