Will the Leader consider asking either the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste, whoever feels so inclined, to come before us and explain how it is that the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, who has just been mentioned in a different context, is permitted to write articles in newspapers so charged with inaccuracy and misleading content, as he has done this morning in today's edition of The Irish Times? He has yet again suggested that somehow, the Judiciary is against reform. That flies in the face of the fact that the current Chief Justice authored the Bill which provided for a judicial council to be established. It also flies in the face of the fact that members of the Judiciary have on many occasions asked for reforms to the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board and that has not been granted to it. It is serious because Deputy Shane Ross is the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. With the buses about to evaporate across Ireland and with train lines being closed down, not to mention some of the sporting debacles in Brazil, it seems the Minister is finding it very difficult to discharge his own functions. It also appears he cannot even make appointments in his own Department to semi-State boards but the one thing he is apparently absolutely concerned with is the making of judicial appointments. The House should know, because eventually some legislation will come before us, that in 2013 he proposed that the committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas should make nominations for people to be judges. He said that would stop cronyism. How ignorant and crass is that as a suggestion?

He has only a distant connection with the truth.

The other point is that he has on many occasions suggested the appointment of judges is a matter of political cronyism. I held the position of Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform from 2002 to 2007 and the late Rory Brady was the Attorney General at the time. I am absolutely satisfied that if one looks at the appointments we made to the superior courts of Ireland, the great majority of them were not supporters of either of the Government parties.

It is about time that the Houses of the Oireachtas showed that a Minister who is not doing his job and who is failing badly to carry out his functions by leaving semi-State boards without appointees because of his own inadequacy and weakness allows the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Attorney General to be the point of contact with the Judiciary. The suggestions made in the disgraceful article in The Irish Times today, talking about the Chief Justice being first out of the traps to rubbish the Minister's views, are completely untrue and to call intemperate the remarks of the President of the Circuit Court who appealed recently for vacancies in his court to be filled in order that he could carry out the laws which these Houses had put in place is a cheek on the part of the Minister. I ask that the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste come to the House to tell us when they will muzzle their dog.

As they did the greyhound.

Can I say a word?

No. Twenty minutes ago Senator Frank Feighan was the last speaker but others were let in.

I wanted to make the point that Senator Michael McDowell was quite right about the eminent appointments.

Senator Michael McDowell has made the point well.