I agree with Senator McDowell. I understand where the reference to the Equal Status Act comes from. However, the Equal Status Act is there for the purpose of enforcing rights and creates categories in which litigation can be conducted to protect people in those categories. Broadly speaking in the context of this amendment while it is important to recognise that, of course, the Judiciary should represent diversity to the greatest extent possible and should reflect the community as a whole, that must be an aspiration…

This section is a very important recognition of the non-application of the Freedom of Information Act as I understand it. This issue will come up in one of my subsequent amendments. It is very important to maintain the confidentiality of those who may apply for judicial office. If that is applied, a whole raft of people, who would certainly be qualified and who might make excellent judges, will simply not apply. The reality is that for people in practice, particularly at the Bar where they are dependent on briefs c…

I do not agree with the amendment. I understand where Senator McDowell is coming from but I feel he has created a very forced scenario, which he has reinforced by suggesting there will somehow be a judicial veto. I do not think that is the case, which is why the Minister has strived to have a small commission with a balance between judicial and lay figures. Senator McDowell has put this together in a not unmischievous way. When he was Attorney General he would not have thanked a Senator for standing up in the House…

Constitutionally, absolutely, but the suggestion was that we should not fetter the Government, while in fact we should. The Senator is right that constitutionally there is a trump card there but as legislators, it should be our job to put in place legislation that fetters, controls or manipulates the powers of the Government. That is why so much of what Ministers do must come back to these Houses and why Ministers are accountable to the Dáil. That is an important part of the checks and balances in our democratic sy…

That is not in the Bill.

A Hobson's choice.

The Deputy Leader will be aware that in the years since the sham presidential election in Belarus a number of Members of this House, the Dáil and the European Parliament have adopted Belarussian political prisoners. These people were imprisoned not because they had committed crimes but because they had somehow opposed or offended Lukashenko's regime. I adopted a man called Maksim Pauliuschynk who was sentenced to two and a half years for what I believe the Belarussian code terms "hooliganism". Essentially, he prote…

I welcome this important Bill. It is also important that we keep up with our obligations to transpose this legislation under our partnerships with other states across the EU. I will comment on the Bill's structure. As other Senators have acknowledged, it is not a Bill that is likely to be read by ordinary people on the street. I hope that the vast majority of ordinary citizens will never have to interact with extradition procedures. Notwithstanding that, there have been a number of amendments to the European Arrest…

I have amendments Nos. 10 and 26. They may not all be in order but it seems to me they are all related to the same material and should all be discussed together.

I heard that but I am sorry to say I was not notified personally, despite the fact it is in my name.

Senator Emer Currie and I submitted that amendment. I understand Senator Currie was notified that it was ruled out of order.

I am proposing that all four would be taken together because they are all related.

I can speak to the section. To my mind, it would make the whole process more streamlined if we dealt with all of them together. That is what I am proposing.

How is it out of order? Surely, if I am making a proposal, the amendments will be dealt with together?

Amendment No. 26 deals with the same matter. I propose that it be dealt with at the same time as amendments Nos. 7 and 9. I have something to say about amendment No. 10 being out of order but I accept what the Acting Chair is saying.

Yes. It is consequential to the decision on amendments Nos. 7 and 9.

Amendment No. 19 can be dealt with as well.

Senator Currie and I tabled an amendment, No. 9, which is on the same lines as this. As my colleague has outlined, in the original iteration of the legislation, there was a provision to allow the IHREC, an important State body with important functions, to be involved in the decisions of the commission about who would be proposed to Government for appointment. It was originally included specifically as nominating a member of the commission. In this iteration of the Bill, that has been amended so that there are now f…

This amendment is absolutely and utterly misguided. It preposterously presupposes that it is appropriate for this House to rush headlong, as it has done in lots of other legislation, towards excluding former Members from any kind of operation after they leave this House. Oftentimes, in fact perhaps most of the time, people leave this or the other House without very much notice and find themselves in a situation where they have to get a job. I am not sure necessarily that the Judiciary is a place that they are likel…

There are different units of time for each of them - absolutely. It is two years for Deputies and Senators, five years for a member of the Government, five years for the Attorney General and five years for somebody who served at the Secretary General level in a Department of the Government. The notion that that somehow debars people from the appropriateness of serving in judicial office is wrong. First, what is much more important than qualifying somebody to serve in judicial office is their actual qualifications. …