Sir, – Minister for Justice Alan Shatter accuses me of talking “nonsense” about the selection process for the position of chief commissioner of the new merged Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission at the Parnell Summer School. (Home News, August 13th). Maybe I am, but my remarks were based on the speech by Emily O’Reilly to the MacGill Summer School and on my own experience. I also made clear I have no personal interest in the position.
Ms O’Reilly, it will be recalled, recently chaired an expert committee of selection for members of the new body and for its chief commissioner. Ms O’Reilly and her colleagues did a first-class job as far as the new interim body is concerned but did not find a candidate they could recommend as chief commissioner. She also made clear that Michael Farrell had been on the original list but that the Department of Justice had felt there could be legal difficulties and the O’Reilly committee accepted this, albeit with reluctance.
This is what she had to say at MacGill: “We then requested that the department-imposed ban on recruiting as chief commissioner anyone who had previously served on either of the two bodies be removed so that no-one of calibre could be excluded from the search. The ban, supposedly justified by the sensitivity of the merger, appears nowhere in the proposed legislation. It meant again that Michael Farrell would be excluded from the process of selection and indeed someone of the calibre and standing of Senator Katherine Zappone. Once again the department refused our request but this time it pulled the plug.We were immediately stood down. Our work we were told is over. The department would regain complete control of the process. ”
I stand by what I said at the Parnell School. Without any legal right, the department told the committee that no member of the outgoing bodies could be chief commissioner of the new merged body, and before there could be any questioning of this diktat closed the committee down before it had completed the full remit it had been given.
I believe Ms O’Reilly’s version and I look forward to her appearance before the Oireachtas Committee later this year. I suppose my main concern is one of bemusement . . . why is the department so determined to exclude people from even getting into the selection process ? – Yours, etc,
MAURICE MANNING,
Haddington Place,
Dublin 4.