Yesterday, when I raised the judicial appointments legislation, the Taoiseach gave an undertaking to the House that he will not allow the year, or many months, it will take to enact the legislation to stop the appointment of urgently needed judges, for example, to the Court of Appeal. That was the instance he gave. According to The Irish Times, a few hours later his spokesperson contradicted that. I do not know if that was the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, striking back. What is the position? Is it, as he set out to the House yesterday, that we will take the proper time to consider this legislation, which will take several months to enact because it has not been drafted yet, and that meanwhile a backlog, which would have serious hardship and financial implications for citizens and businesses, will not be allowed to arise in the Court of Appeal or the superior courts?

The Government is fully focused on producing the legislation for the judicial appointments commission. There are a few vacancies in the courts. On the last occasion when we made appointments we expected them to be the last appointments under the old system pending the introduction of the new judicial appointments commission. I do not have any proposals to bring names before Cabinet for appointment to the Judiciary now.

Is there an embargo on appointments?

We are working on the creation of the new system and the judicial appointments commission.