Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

To take the Minister's last point first, when we are tendering amendments to this legislation, they have to be coherent. If one is going to propose a minority of lay persons at a later point, and if one is going to propose amendment of the Bill by assiduously removing all the lay majority provisions in it, there is nothing incongruous about having the Long Title of the Bill reflect that state of affairs. The order in which these things are taken provides that this particular provision has to be taken now. It cannot be amended at the very end of the debate on Fifth Stage or whatever.

I remember a famous compromise on barristers' wigs. They were to be prohibited under the terms of a Bill tendered by one of the Minister's predecessors, Nora Owen, but eventually a compromise was reached where the section that said a barrister shall not wear a ceremonial wig of the kind heretofore worn was amended to say a barrister shall not be obliged to wear a ceremonial wig of the kind heretofore worn. Most barristers do not wear one, so that was the end of that. The curious anomaly that arose from all of that was that the acceptance of that amendment at that Stage did not deal with the Long Title of that legislation, which said that one of its purposes was to prohibit the wearing of barristers' wigs. One has to deal with it in the order that the procedure of this House deals with these matters, and we cannot come back to the Long Title of the Bill having looked at the text again. One has to be prospective in the amendments that are being proposed.

Senator Bacik pointed out fairly, I think, that there are virtually no parallels on the appointment of persons on the basis of expertise, where a majority of the people appointing, or having a function in the appointment of any kind, are required to be people who do not share that expertise. There is practically no parallel in any other sphere of life and she pointed to the case of a specialist medical consultant being recommended for appointment to a vacancy in a university teaching hospital and being told that a majority of the people who will make the decision know little or nothing about medicine. One would be very surprised.