Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2020-12-17
============================================================

Pearse Doherty (SF), Donegal

I echo all the Ceann Comhairle's comments in relation to the staff and the good wishes.
I want to return to the appointment of Mr. Justice Séamus Woulfe. The revelations this morning in The Irish Times are, indeed, shocking. They are shocking for this reason. The Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, informed us in the Dáil on 26 November that she got the memorandum on 6 July. The Minister stated:
What I did, therefore, was not bring it [to Cabinet] immediately, even though I had been told that this was urgent. I took time to look at the JAAB recommendation, and it is a recommendation because it states that in the letter and in the relevant section of the legislation referring to JAAB. I looked at all the names that had come through the expressions of interest process, and then there was obviously a list of sitting judges. They had not expressed an interest, however, so that was something which is looked at last. Following that process, I spoke to all the leaders, as I have outlined in the timeframe, and, based on their responses, I made a recommendation. It is a very clear process.
That is a clear process that the Minister outlined but what the Minister failed to outline is that she looked at the recommendation. The Minister looked at the list, a list that came through JAAB which had-----

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-12-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:57+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-12-17