The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, has denied that a six-month delay in filling a judicial appointment in the District Court was because none of the candidates proposed was a "card-carrying member" of the Fianna Fail party, writes Alison O'Connor, Political Reporter.
The controversy arose following the delay in filling the vacancy, despite a list of seven names being submitted by the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board to the Cabinet at the beginning of April. Answering questions in the Dail, Mr O'Donoghue said the Government had decided the Attorney General, who is a member of the JAAB, should be asked to discuss "certain matters of a substantive legal nature" with the Chief Justice, who is chairman of the board.
"A process of consultation then took place on the legal issues and the question of filling the vacancy was left aside while this was ongoing," said the Minister, adding, however, the Government had decided to fill the vacancy last month. The discussions, said Mr O'Donoghue, had to do generally with the procedures followed by the JAAB and the question of whether legislative changes might be required.
Fine Gael's justice spokesman, Mr Alan Shatter, asked if the problem the Government had was that out of the seven names nominated it could not identify a card-carrying member of Fianna Fail. He asked if there was a precedent during the lifetime of this Government for such a vacancy to remain in place for so long. The Minister said had the Government wished to ignore the recommendations of the board it could have done so within the law.