Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise if I misunderstood what the Senator said in terms of cross-contamination. I thought she had used that term. I absolutely agree with her in terms of what she said about local authority members. In fact, if one looks at any State board, for example, one of the things that will more often than not debar a person from membership is membership of local authority. That is another short-sighted move by successive Governments, including my own, that have precluded often very talented, experience and qualified people from local government, as much as from these Houses, from holding offices where they could be of benefit to the public.

In fairness, the proposal the Senator made is consistent with the other amendments that have been submitted in relation to, for example, the Attorney General. The difficulty I have with it is that is presupposes that there is a crisis of confidence and there is somehow some public lack of confidence in the Judiciary when, in fact, I think the opposite is the case. All of the objective evidence in relation to the operation of the Judiciary in this country is that it is the opposite. People have confidence in the Judiciary for good reason. The Judiciary operates at a level that is fair and transparently legal and it applies the rule of law.

I contrast this with the British judiciary, for example, and I said this during the Second Stage debate and when I spoke earlier during the Committee Stage debate. I recently read a book in which a practitioner in the UK was extolling the virtues of the British judiciary and how it has been very effective in establishing the rule of law. According to her, that is why so many people choose the UK as a jurisdiction for international law. There may be some truth to that but, unfortunately, we can also look at a judiciary in the UK that has an appalling history, in particular in terms of our countrymen and dealing with them in legal processes. In fact, an article in the Guardianlast week referred to a survey that found the judiciary in England and Wales was found to be institutionally racist, for example. I do not think that could ever be said of our Judiciary. We have a coterie of men and women who serve in the Judiciary in this country who are beyond compare globally. They stand above people, particularly in the common law world. It is certainly not true of the United States and I do not think it is true in the United Kingdom. In other common law jurisdictions, there are problems with the judiciary that we do not have. There is a consistently high performance here.

The difficulty that I have with this amendment is that we can talk about independence but, again, we are talking about a body that is making a proposal to Government. The notion that people who are advising or are members of that body have experience of Government at whatever level that might be is not a bad thing. The other thing is that when people get involved in judicial issues, they separate themselves from their former lives. I have no difficulty excluding sitting Members from being involved in that; that is a given. In my experience of individuals who, let us say, have been politically active or, in the case of some judges, have been Members of these Houses or a member of Government, once they have achieved judicial office, they separate themselves from that past life. I understand the Senator's point that this is not what we are talking about but I think the same is true of people who leave these Houses. They are often very happy to leave politics behind and move on with a normal life where they can be home in time to eat dinner with their families. However, they also separate themselves from the policies that are involved in that and take on the role with the dedication and independence that is required of them. This amendment presupposes that they either do not or cannot do that. That is not true and that is why I think it is misguided.