Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----joining an insurance company or becoming chairman of a bank, or another such change that has happened in the past, a period of ten years is surely not necessary to get rid of the camaraderie or whatever of the Law Society or the Law Library, which is supposed to be so terrible.

The prohibition on the chairperson being a lay person means, according to the legislation, that someone who has practised for three years as a barrister or solicitor, became an academic, rose through academia and, after 12 years, became a professor or the dean of a law faculty, would as a result be wholly excluded from being considered a lay person, whereas somebody who simply took a bachelor of civil law degree and a master's degree, but never darkened the door of a solicitor's office or the Law Library, would be eligible to be considered a lay person. How daft is that? How shameful that such arbitrary discrimination should be put into law.

We talk these days about populism, and about people making inflammatory remarks regarding immigration, using words unwisely and trying to create, by wolf-whistle politics, a wrong impression among voters. There is a danger of that, as the Minister has noted. The purpose of the 15-year quarantine provision, however, is to reinforce the notion that the Bill will somehow get rid of cronyism. It will not do that in the first instance, and it is false to suggest that cronyism has any part to play in the appointment of judges, as the 58 appointments Senator Boyhan mentioned prove.

We read constantly in the newspaper - the more I hear about it, the more I believe - that the Minister, Deputy Ross, now objects to Circuit Court and District Court appointments, and to vacancies in the Supreme Court being filled. That any Government could abase itself to allow one Minister take the appointment of judges hostage is bad enough, but to do so somehow to bully this House into doing what it should not do, namely, pass the legislation, which will only disimprove the quality of the Judiciary appointed hereafter, is worse.

Accordingly, I am happy with the amendment, which will simply make it possible for a lay person, judge, solicitor or barrister, or someone who has worked for three years as a practising lawyer before becoming a distinguished academic, to be chairperson. The amendment is good and the Minister should accept it. His silence, on this occasion, speaks volumes. I have not heard anybody, including Senator Conway, refute the points I have made or offer a different point of view.