Shane Ross may be the Transport, Sport and Tourism Minister but he has wielded almost as much power over the justice system as he has in his own portfolio in recent years.

Not only has he almost secured a landmark reform of how judges are appointed, he has also revealed for the first time that he has been vetting almost every judicial appointment since he took office.

Three or four days before a potential judicial appointment is brought before Cabinet, the Independent Alliance Minister is given the name and he performs his own due diligence test on the would-be judge.

The name is run through Google, calls are made to the law library and any political connections are rooted out.

Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.

Log In

New to Independent.ie? Create an account

With his Judicial Appointment Bill almost signed into law, Ross told the Sunday Independent how he has ensured that Fine Gael political cronies have not slipped through the cracks.

Speaking in his ministerial office just off Leeson Street in Dublin city centre, he says: “Finian McGrath [Disability Minister] and I are in Cabinet and all judges are given to me in advance to look at – maybe two or three days – which means that we are basically proofing them from political favouritism.

“I get their name and I get their identity and I look at them and if there was someone who looked to be chosen for other reasons there would be serious objections.”

Ross says his vetting process has been a “protection in itself” as before he took office political appointments were “very identifiable”.

He adds that any backlog in appointing judges is due to “political tensions” between Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance.

He says he would purposely hold up appointments if he did not think his judicial appointment legislation was moving through parliament quickly enough.

“We don’t want to stop justice and so of course we’ve approved appointments – it would be mad not to,” he adds.

Ross is confident that the legislation will be enacted before the general election after the marathon filibuster that the reforms faced in the Seanad.

He does not believe that the new law, which was agreed in the Programme for Government, will be enacted when the Dail returns in the new year.

He even believes Fianna Fail barrister Jim O’Callaghan will be reluctant to delay the new system for appointing judges.

“Jim may disapprove of the Bill because he’s a lawyer but I don’t think he’s going to actually act on behalf of the lawyers when he’s elected by the people of Dublin Bay South,” Ross says.

Back in his own department, most of his time recently has been spent seeking to resolve the crisis sparked in the aftermath of John Delaney’s departure from the Football Association of Ireland (FAI).

Ross has talks planned with Uefa in the new year and he is open to discussing money with European football’s ruling body.

However, he still insists he will not bail out the beleaguered FAI with taxpayers’ money.

“We’re not talking about giving money or bailing out the FAI but we are open to talking figures to see what we can do if we give comfort, encouragement, help, support to Irish football in combination with say Uefa and the banks,” he says.

He also plans to meet representatives of the League of Ireland and is open to exploring new ways of funding the league. At present, Uefa funding for the league is administered through the FAI.

“If there was a liquidation it would be very easy to, in a very short time, revive the League of Ireland because all I know that the FAI does is transfers that money [from Uefa] and it also administers the game,” he says.

Ross blames the Premier League for the lack of interest in Irish football.

“Unfortunately, Britain is the centre of football in this country and that’s a terrible thing,” he says. “I think there’s room for improvement. That would take putting a huge amount of money into the League of Ireland.”

He says he would like to see an All Ireland football team in the same way that the Irish Rugby Football Union operates.

He has even made approaches to Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster about the idea, but said “political bigotry” is stopping the proposal from progressing.

“I think the Irish team would benefit from an All Ireland team. I did ask about that when I was in Northern Ireland. I asked Arlene Foster when I met her but she wasn’t enthusiastic about it,” Ross adds.

“There are political objections to it but I think that it would be a better team and it would win more games.”

On St Stephen’s Day, Ross found himself at the centre of controversy after posting a picture of himself on Twitter holding a cooked goose. The caption read: “Guess who cooked my goose? The FAI? The Judges? The Vintners?” A number of people including FAI staff, who fear their jobs may be at risk, took offence to the tweet.

Yesterday, Mr Ross said he was “really sorry” if any of the FAI staff felt he was “making light of a highly serious situation”.

“They can rest assured that their interests are top priority, not only today, but will be in weeks to come,” he said.

“I was just highlighting three groups of insiders with vested interests who have resisted my proposed reforms to their protected citadels: the judges who are still trying to retain their inner circle; the vintners who resisted my drink-driving Bill tooth and nail; and the old guard at the top in the FAI who haven’t all gone away, you know.”

Meanwhile, in transport, Ross says he is doing a “huge amount” in seeking to reduce the amount of time commuters spend in traffic but warns that solutions will not be found overnight.

He has bought new buses, Luas carriages and trains and is also investing significantly in cycling. But the main thing he wants to do is get cars off the road.

“You can’t sort out traffic like we’ve got overnight because it’s symptomatic of the incredible success that we’ve had as a nation in economic recovery,” he said.

Ross is aiming to be re-elected to the Dail for a third time when the country goes to the polls next year and he reckons he has a “fighting chance” of keeping his seat.

“My own polling is telling me that I have a reasonable chance of being re-elected but I have to work pretty hard and keep working pretty hard because it’s very competitive,” he added.

“It’s a volatile constituency. It always has been and they punished poll toppers there in the past which I was.”

The Independent Alliance will campaign separately when the general election campaign officially begins but those who return to the Dail will come together to negotiate with whoever holds power.

Source: Read Full Article