Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The purpose of amendment No. 2 is to make it clear in the Long Title to the Bill that the lay members should be a minority of the commission as constituted. At the moment Members will be aware that the Bill envisages at section 10 that it should consist of 17 members. In my view that is an unwieldy and unnecessarily large group of people and if the number of lay persons appointed under section 10(1)(k) was reduced to four, and the chairperson under 10(1)(j) was permitted to be a lawyer, a judge or a layperson this would be a much more effective commission. Therefore, what we are proposing here is that for this advisory body, composed in the main of people who are not necessarily experienced in the law, the judicial process or in the way in which individual candidates have functioned as lawyers, solicitors or barristers, the kind of practices they have, to have the lay participants constitute a majority of the commission is in the circumstances unnecessary. This body is quite capable of functioning with a minority of lay persons on it. The purpose of this amendment is to amend the Long Title to the Bill to make it clear that the lay participation will be in a minority capacity rather than a majority capacity, as proposed in the legislation as it stands.