Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to him in a second.A person who was going before a committee and felt that he or she may be asked questions on those issues would be somebody who, strangely, could not be asked those questions for any other position by a would-be employer and could seek redress, curiously, from the Equality Tribunal if asked such questions in an employment context. This appointment being to a judicial office is not employment and it is not subject to the equality Acts. For that reason, this particular measure is designed to warn the commission that it is not judges of these matters and should not make judgments by reference to these matters. Such matters should be purely and exclusively for the Government of the day to consider.

Senator Norris raised the question of the late Judge Rory O'Hanlon. He was, in his early middle age, a remarkably good academic and lecturer in University College Dublin. I do not know if the Minister ever sat at his feet but I did. He was regarded as a clear-minded, liberal, republican, middle-of-the-road lecturer with a great grasp of constitutional law.