Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I slightly disagree with Senator Craughwell on that. My view is that one can differentiate between serving judges and other persons who have never been appointed. I have no problem with that as long as there is some capacity to distinguish between different types of serving judges applying for judicial office. It is strange to say that a District Judge who wanted to be an ordinary judge of the Supreme Court should be in a radically different position from, say, a senior solicitor or senior barrister who had practised in those courts for 25 years and that the latter should be interviewed but the judge should not. That seems to be a strange situation.