Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I also speak in support of amendment No. 5 in the name of Senator Norris. I thank Senator Noone for the very clear outline of her concerns about the Bill and her support in principle for the amendment. It is sensible. It is also an issue to which we will return when we come to amendment No. 7 in the Minister's name and amendment No. 30 tabled by the Labour Party and supported by Senator Norris. It also looks at the issue of the chairperson of the commission.

As I said on the last day, I have a fundamental difficulty with the approach in the Bill. It appears the sole criterion to be qualified to chair the commission is that a person was never a judge and never worked as a lawyer for the State and if they ever practised law that they gave it up at least 15 years before. This is the basis on which the Minister's amendment No. 7 is outlined. It seems to be a particularly extreme definition of a layperson. One wonders why such an uncompromising approach is being taken on this.

On Committee Stage, I spoke about the fundamental difficulty I have with the process through which the Bill is being put to us. It is coming from a position where there has been absolutely no attempt at compromise and no sitting down to speak to those of us in opposition who have no difficulty with reform in principle but would like to see negotiated reform of the judicial appointment process which is sensible and does not get embedded in rigid positions, and which recognises that, as with the appointment of other professionals such as engineers, architects and academics, we enable and facilitate the exercise of professional experience and expertise while also having lay participation. As I said in the previous debate on the Bill, minority lay participation ensures integrity and even-handedness in the appointment of hospital consultants but we do not have this exclusion of people with expertise and this very particular definition of a layperson that we see in amendment No. 7. Amendment No. 30 would address this if it were passed. In the meantime, I will certainly support amendment No. 5.

An obvious compromise proposal for reform was put forward in the Dáil in Deputy Jim O'Callaghan's Bill. It had a sensible approach to reform. It provided for a commission with a well thought-out mixture of competencies that would enable the application of legal expertise and experience while also allowing for lay participation and the participation of nominees of key entities, such as the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC. There was also provision for gender balance in the commission, which is the subject of some of my later amendments on Report Stage and which we also debated on Committee Stage.

We are not against reform. We want a sensible negotiated reform based on sensible compromise that enables the exercise of experience and expertise and does not have a knee-jerk reaction against expertise in the way in which the Minister's proposals appear to be set out. In this context, I support the amendment of Senator Norris.