Flanagan says he will not be bound by Ross timelines on judges’ Bill

Minister for Transport Shane Ross has indicated that he expects legislation on judicial appointments to be passed through the Oireachtas by the summer, but Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has said he will not be bound by Mr Ross's deadlines.

Amid worsening relations in Government over the controversial Judicial Appointments Bill, Mr Ross is believed to have raised doubts about his future participation in Government if the Bill – which he regards as “an absolute top priority” for the Independent Alliance – is not passed in the coming months.

However, The Irish Times understands that other members of the alliance do not support this position. "To be honest, I wouldn't approve of anyone doing that," Independent Alliance Minister of State John Halligan said.

Other alliance members said the Government’s lack of a majority in the Dáil meant nobody could guarantee the Bill’s passage.

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On Sunday Mr Ross told RTÉ radio's This Week programme that he was "not going to be issuing ultimatums on the air", but the Bill was "an absolute top priority, an absolute key issue", and that he expected that it would be passed by the summer.

senior Government figures say that Mr Ross has indicated that his continuing participation in Government is at risk if progress is not made on the Bill.

Government sources said that Mr Ross “went ape” over comments on Friday by the attorney general Séamus Woulfe, who said that the Bill was a “dog’s dinner”.

‘Unworkable’

The Minister for Transport is understood to have contacted Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Flanagan and Mr Woulfe on Saturday when the media published the attorney general's remarks.

Mr Ross had insisted on the Bill returning to the Dáil this week, stating the Independent Alliance would not agree to any further judicial appointments until it passed, although the Cabinet appointed three judges last week after Mr Ross had delayed the appointments by a week.

Government sources say Mr Ross has been informed on several occasions the Bill had become “unworkable” but still imposed a deadline. The comments by Mr Woulfe made him “lose it”, one Government figure added.

But speaking to The Irish Times on Sunday, the Minister for Justice, who has responsibility for the legislation, stressed he would not be bound by any timeline.

While he insisted he was committed to reforming the current system, Mr Flanagan said the law “must be both constitutionally sound and workable”.

That required working with the attorney general to improve the Bill, he added.

“We need to get it right rather than impose guillotine-type deadlines. I am confident that, working with the attorney general, we can improve the Bill which has been the subject of almost 200 Opposition amendments, 67 of which were passed. Having regard to Dáil numbers we must work with others to get the Bill enacted.”

Favourite barristers

Mr Ross said on Sunday that politicians were continuing to appoint “their friends” as judges.

He repeated that the new Bill was necessary to change the current system of judicial appointments which saw “politicians appointing their favourite barristers and solicitors to the bench”.

The Minister acknowledged that there were legal questions about some aspects of the Bill following a large number of amendments at committee stage, but he said he had spent the morning discussing the issue with the attorney general and the issues that concern the attorney general were “going to be addressed tomorrow morning at dawn when people go in”.

“This Bill will get through in one form or another,” Mr Ross said.