Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. This provides for a new definition of "lay person" to be inserted into section 3 to ensure that the term "lay person" is not confined to exclude only persons who held judicial office, had been the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Attorney General, the Chief State Solicitor or law officers in the State, or had been practising barristers or solicitors in the State. It now encompasses in its exclusions those persons who have held office outside of the State. A person who has held judicial office outside of the State or, subject to the time limit in subsection (2), has been the equivalent of a practising barrister or solicitor in another jurisdiction cannot be regarded as a lay person for the purposes of the Bill under the amendment.