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MINISTER SHANE ROSS has said he’s sorry for using ‘colourful language’ about the country’s judges when speaking about reform of judges’ appointments.
Last month, the Independent Alliance TD said that judges lived a ‘charmed life’, claiming there has “always been massive resistance to change from the judiciary”.
In a statement issued a week later, the Chief Justice Susan Denham contradicted the Minister’s comments, saying that there had been “five years of efforts by the judiciary to have the process of judicial appointments reformed and made more transparent”.
Speaking today upon the publication of a new approach to how judges will be selected, Shane Ross was asked whether he now regretted his comments:
“I think that some of the things that were said were very robust, but many of these things they had to be said because it was very important that people realised what we were doing.”
Maybe the language was too colourful, I think it was too colourful for lots of people in government as well and I’m sorry if it was too colourful.
“Otherwise the thrust of what we’ve done, we’re very very happy with the fact that we’ve achieved this for the first time. This is a very radical bill – it’s the most radical bill I think that’s been put forward under this government.”
The reforms for how judicial appointments will be made include having a lay chair on the board and a lay majority (the ratio will be 5:6), and a renewed emphasis on diversity in terms of gender and nationality.
“We’re delighted with the fact that it’s going to be independent, it’s going to be transparent, there’s going to be diversity in those who choose justice,” continued the Minister.
We’re going to see the selection of judges virtually taken out of the political arena, and it’s also not going to be dominated by the legal profession. That’s a huge achievement, so I’m really happy with where we’ve got so far.
Commenting on the publishing of these reforms under the Scheme of Judicial Appointments Commision Bill, Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald said that the gender and country of the person will be an important consideration for appointments.
Speaking on Drivetime, she said that the old system of appointments didn’t mean favours were done for friends, but that this was simply a case of updating the system.
She said that she didn’t agree with Shane Ross that the system was ‘broken’, saying in a statement released earlier today that “we are fortunate to have Ireland a strong, independent, impartial and well respected judiciary and these reforms will ensure this continues”.
‘Very powerful people’
In a statement issued following the National Judges Conference in November, the Chief Justice took the opportunity to ‘clear the air’ over judges’ stances on judicial reform.
“In our democracy the three great pillars of State – the legislature, the executive and the judiciary – derive their powers from the people. It is a fundamental principle, that each of the great organs of State owes respect to the other.
Inaccurate discussion and misrepresentation of the position of the judiciary has been a feature of recent public discourse.
“Amongst other factors, it is surprising that it has been stated that the Judiciary are fighting change – when the opposite is the case – the Judiciary have been advocating change, but it has not yet been advanced.”
“There was no intention of getting anybody’s backs up,” said Ross when asked why the comments were made in the first place. ”Of course there wasn’t and you can see from the bill that we’ve been accommodating the judges that we value their expertise. We’re going to have at least two judges there, probably more.”
“We’re going to have another judge of relevant jurisdictions coming in to contribute to the interviews and deliberations. I don’t think it’s fair to say I’ve gone out of my way to antagonise them.
I know it’s very difficult to change things, in situations like this, they’re very powerful people who don’t like things being moved, so those have to be done.
Ross added that some issues around how judges are selected still have to be ironed out.
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Thanks for the kind comments. The “deals” business has become very… murky lately. We didnt want to get into that sort of business but its very hard to compete with underhand practices so we chose to wind up that part of the business the same way we have operated, cleanly and with no one getting hurt. As a director, I’m proud of the executive team and what they accomplished, its just time for us to bow out of the business before the whole industry gets… messy.
All the affected staff are being snapped up by other companies in the Distilled group and needless to say we wish them the very best.
?? That’s a strange comment! I know the owner of a deals website that is doing very well and he is totally above board, I’ve also been on the opposite end of offering deals through a website. The fact that some websites insisted on 50%, non negotiable, made the deal impossible offer, hence the lack of variety in some of the sites. It’s not so much a murky industry but one that needs to realise getting rich quick these days in this country isn’t going to happen. As they say look after the customer and the money will look after itself, such a shane another business is gone!
I strongly disagree with the shady comment.
It’s well known that BD were operating on commission percentages between 15 & 25%
If you have a deal selling for €40 & you sell 100 of them, with a 20% commission your take is less than €800 for the day.
BD tried (badly) to monitize an existing subscriber base & as pointed out above, ended up burning some goodwill.
It was a badly executed exercise. Having said that at least they had the balls to pull out before it dragged down the entire DM group
Shady comment? Oh please! The deals business is a great business and I hope it stays. I know for a fact that there is a lot of price fixing amongst certain businesses so the more competition the better. The fact is when the recession hit people were looking for great deals, rightly so and the deals business blossomed. They hit companies with rediculas percentages that were unsustainable. Prices in general came down and now there is better value in general therefore deals companies needed to move along with that trend. Some didn’t, that’s their downfall. Unfortunately just like during the boom, businesses didn’t realise it wouldn’t last and like the initial downfall some companies took advantage of that, not realising that that first initial drop wouldn’t last either and burnt bridges. It’s unfortunates but the deals business is still going strong, thank god for the consumer, as for some businesses? Lesson learnt!
Sad to hear as It was a great site and if you ever had a problem they were second to none in sorting it out. The deals market has been severely diluted by the sheer amount of sites operating tot the detriment of both the customer and the business involved.
Have to agree, the other frustrating thing about deals websites is the vast vast majority of deals appear to be just beauty treatments and nights in hotels, these get old very fast and the beauty items are generally just aimed at women.
Awful shame men appear to be ignored so much
The other thing that I’ve found is that they’re quite deceitful. The deal could be €60 for one night B&B in a 3 star in Lahinch with a glass of vino but when you log on to Roomex or hotels.com, you can get the same deal except in a 4 star & for another €20 throw in a dinner.
They’d one recently for dinner for two people that was worth €90 but yours just €40 (roughly). Anyways, I went on the restaurants site & their price list was up- unless you were planning on ordering two fillet steaks, there’s no way it would come anywhere close to their alleged RRP. Cowboys Ted.
Is that the IT guy on the far left?
Stereotype much?:) That’s Dav. Boards community manager. @Shiminay
hahah, I used to work as a Sys Admin and a Software Engineer, my nerd heritage will always be with me :p
I’m not sure it’s the quality of the deals that are killing these enterprises. I think people have awoken to the fact that they’re not actually saving any money (unless they get a deal on something they were planning to buy, or really need).
If you weren’t going to spend it in the first place, then that’s not saving money.
Any enterprise that bases it’s model on impulse buying will generally have a short shelf life, as the consumer soon cottons onto it.
Pity, they were by far the best run of those splurge of sites.
Great way to bow out, call time on the industry and a shot across competitors. Nothing to do of course with a woeful brand name and gradually deteriorating selection of offers. Stay classy!
Agreed mark. Classy indeed……. Let’s remember guys that just because boards deals doesn’t like the daily deals space doesn’t mean it is doomed. Far from it I would say. It will evolve and change and definitely deal quality will be a must. As a consumer I love deals. U just gotta sift through them. I read somewhere that the market is something like 8 million each month in Dublin alone :-O And let’s not forget the jobs that this sector is creating both within itself and in associated businesses.
In fairness, it’s not as if boards deals didn’t have its small share of badly handled deals either. They also managed to squander almost all of their boards.ie good will at various points.
It is a shame though, as conceived boards deals had fantastic potential to become a community oriented deals site that offered customers more than just €40 Off a hair colouring or spa treatment.
Forgot to add, serious props to DMG for absorbing the losses within the wider group. Nice to see, especially these days.
They’re right about the shelf life of this type of web site. Best of luck to all involved in the site. A great bunch of folks!
I agree-han ^
Crowded marketplace… No room for a ‘me too’ service. The 1/4 of those websites that survive will be the ones who establish a record of quality offerings now.
Hence the banner ads on Boards.ie?
A lot of companies are using Facebook. I presume it costs them nothing. I see a couple of hotels with deals on it lately and you can see how many people took up the offer.
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