Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 95a:

In page 32, lines 7 to 11, to delete all words from and including “was—” in line 7 down to and including line 11 and substitute the following:“was recommended by the Commission to the Minister in accordance with the provisions of this Act.”.

This is a proposal to amend section 48 by the removal of all the words from the word "was" in line 7 down to and including line 11 and to substitute for them the words "was recommended by the Commission to the Minister in accordance with the provisions of this Act". The effect of this amendment is to remove paragraphs (a) and (b) and the reference to section 44, and in its place simply to say that notice of an appointment to judicial office shall be published in Iris Oifigfiúil and the notice shall, if it be the case, include a statement that the name of the person was recommended by the commission to the Minister in accordance with provisions of this Act. This effectively removes the reference to section 44 and to tidy up the section accordingly.

Since we last debated this legislation, we had quite a tussle over an effort to impose a guillotine this morning on this Bill. Since that battle is now over, there is not much point in me making a reference back to it. I thank, first of all, the Members of this House who opposed the effort to impose a guillotine on this Bill, which effort and the circumstances in which it was done were very undemocratic. I also thank the many Fine Gael Party Seanad Members who have expressed their pleasure to me at the outcome of the vote on the guillotine. I hope that whoever is listening, somewhere away from here, to the outcome of today's proceedings takes on board the fact that nobody or significant group of people in this House wants the guillotine imposed. They are tired of having the business of this House manipulated from a distance. I hope that message has finally got home and is understood clearly. If we had had a guillotine imposed, the Bill would gone forward to Report Stage with section 44 in its present state. The Minister himself does not want that to happen.