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

I have to stress what we are talking about here. I appreciate that these amendments propose moving from nine to 11 people, but it would in fact become nine to 13, because I could not or would not accept that there would be a minority of lay persons.We have tried to strike a balance to ensure an equal number of laypeople and legal professionals on the commission.

The Senator mentioned the fact that the Chief Justice will not have a casting vote and that decisions will be made on the basis of consensus. That is how JAAB has operated in effect. I understand there has never been a vote at the JAAB. It is important that names are put forward on the basis of consensus. That is a good way to work and it is why I want to continue in that vein. We are talking about a change from nine to 13, which would change the dynamic of any group.

In any other profession, people are appointed on the basis of an interview process in the vast majority of cases. Appointments are not based on what a member of the profession thinks or does not think about a candidate, or may or may not have heard about him or her. The Judicial Council must appoint people from the upper and lower courts. A solicitor or barrister appointed to the District Court may only recently have left their profession and may have as much knowledge or information about current practising barristers or solicitors as anybody else. We must get away from the idea of making appointments on the basis of knowing people's tics or lack thereof, or what they did or did not do in their previous roles. We must focus only on a person's skills, expertise, knowledge of the courts, performance, personality and temperament. Through an interview process, one can discover those things about a candidate. It is not a perfect process in any profession but we are trying to make it as transparent as possible. At the moment, the situation is that nobody is interviewed. A substantial number of names come to the Minister and he or she then has to make a decision having, in the vast majority of cases, never met any of the candidates. The Minister makes the decision on the basis of candidates' CVs, reputations and what they have put down. I do not mean in any way to say that the opinions of those at the Bar Council of Ireland and the Law Society of Ireland are not valued or important. What I have tried to do, albeit Senators do not agree, is to ensure we have representation of solicitors and barristers. I agree that once someone becomes a judge there is no such thing as a solicitor-judge or barrister-judge, in the same way that a person is not from a political party if he or she was previously active. There is still, however, that level of experience there and that can be reflected in decisions that are taken. Unfortunately, for those reasons, I am not going to accept the amendments that have been put forward.