Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are a number of elements to this, as the Senators pointed out. One aspect I wanted to ensure was that there will not be a large commission whose number just continues to increase. There are a number of later amendments regarding specific numbers of lay persons who should be appointed and how to reduce that. I do not think the figure, therefore, would go from nine to 11 but rather to 13 because, as I have set out clearly, there need to be an equal number of legal persons as well as lay persons on the commission, working with the Attorney General but with the Chief Justice as chair.

We are moving away from the use of peer impressions of individuals. I do not necessarily agree it is the case that a nominee from the Bar Council and a nominee from the Law Society would know every person in the professions and be able to comment on every one of them. It is just as likely that a person who has more recently been appointed to the District Court, having come from one of those legal professions, would have as much an understanding of an individual but also, as someone now sitting on the Bench, he or she would have an understanding of what is required of the candidate.

Currently, there are no interviews, so perhaps it works better that people know, to a greater extent, whom they are talking about, although I reiterate I do not think any individual could know everybody. We are now focusing on an interview, objective testing, skills and knowledge, all set out by the commission.While interviews might not be perfect, for any job or role they are the best test to see who is suitable for a job. People can always ask and inquire if there are questions or queries about an individual, but we are introducing a new system and structure whereby an interview will have to take place and a person will have to set out their competencies and skills.

I do not in any way want either profession to think that we do not respect the work done by the current Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, JAAB, or that its opinions are not worthy. I have made clear that of the nine people, there will be the Chief Justice, the president of the court that will be appointing a person to the particular vacancy and two nominees by the Judicial Council ensuring that we have a man and woman, because we need to make sure we have that gender balance, and somebody with a background in practising as a solicitor or barrister and that these are taken into account, acknowledging that it is important to have a balance of both professions.

Overall, this is not to reflect badly on how the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board has worked to date, but we are moving to a new system. We are moving away from this idea that it is based on impressions or on a peer-to-peer process. It is very much focused on merit, it is independent and it is based on people's skills, knowledge and understanding. Those sitting on the Bench would have a history and a past of practising on the other side of the Bench and would have a clear picture of what is required. This would obviously be supported by the lay members as well.

I am not sure why Senator McDowell’s second amendment has been ruled out of order because I think other colleagues will propose amendments that will balance it out. I am not sure what the issue is there. However, as I said, it would not be a case of moving from nine to 11 people, but it would be moving up to 13. It is important that we have a stakeholder representative group that is small and coherent in size and not large and unwieldy. Unfortunately, for those reasons, I cannot accept the amendments that have been tabled by Senators.