Minister for Transport Shane Ross has accused “legal insiders” in the Oireachtas of filibustering in an attempt to delay the Judicial Appointments Bill.

The Government’s Judicial Appointments Bill is no longer a “dog’s dinner” but rather a plate of “caviar and oysters”, Transport Minister Shane Ross has said.

A Dáil debate on the Judicial appointments Bill has been suspended amid confusion over the number lay people involved.

Fianna Fáil is still opposed to backing Transport Minister Shane Ross’s “dog’s dinner” judicial appointments bill despite the Cabinet agreeing to more than 50 amendments regarding it in a bid to rescue the proposed law from being scrapped.

New laws to change how judges are appointed should not be kicked about like a “political football”, warns Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Several ministers have rejected calls for Attorney General Seamus Woulfe to be shown “the red card” over his comments at a lunch last Friday.

An inquiry is being conducted into an allegation that a district judge called a defendant “English scum” at a remand hearing.

WHEN high court judge, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys, opened the Parnell Summer School, in Wicklow, yesterday, he suggested our Constitution should be amended to allow the appointment of more judges, so that cases might be more quickly dealt with.

The Judicial Appointments Bill risks not being passed until after October, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has signalled.

Supreme Court judge Frank Clarke is to be appointed chief justice after the Cabinet signed off on his nomination in its last meeting before the summer recess.

The first of his family to enter third-level education, the socially liberal Frank Clarke is set to become the country’s next chief justice.

Latest: The Government has nominated a new Chief Justice - but cannot say how he was picked.

A row has been simmering between the executive and judicial branches of government for some time, writes Alison O’Connor. 

IN a landmark case in 1982, the Supreme Court Judge Seamus Henchy spoke about “The bitter Irish race-memory of politically appointed and Executive-oriented judges”. 

It has emerged that new laws to overhaul the selection of judges may not pass before the Dáil breaks for its summer recess.

Shane Ross’s Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2016 is part of a broader agenda, writes Gerard Howlin.

The Government is to press ahead with controversial reforms of the judicial appointments system despite an unprecedented warning from the country’s top judges that the move will have “serious implications for the administration of justice”.

Former justice minister Michael McDowell has attacked Transport Minister Shane Ross, claiming his desire to reform how judges are appointed stems from a “personal agenda”.

The country’s most senior judges have made an historic intervention this evening in the row over the future of judicial appointments.

Planned legislation overhauling the judicial appointments’ process is “wrong in principle”.

The director general of the Law Society has joined calls for a major overhaul of judicial appointments to ensure the system is free of political bias.

High on the list of qualities people expect of judges are fairness and balance in measuring out justice, a large dose of common sense in the verdicts they hand down, and a level playing field in their appointment.