LEO VARADKAR and Simon Coveney might well have to wait for another ten days before the formal contest to replace Enda Kenny as the leader of Fine Gael, and Taoiseach.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Frances Fitzgerald was touted as a prospective candidate, though she's not mentioned as much of late, perhaps as a result of the myriad Garda controversies. Even if there were not such concerns, however, Fitzgerald might not have the time to run a leadership contest - as another crisis might be emerging in her own brief.

The Cabinet might well tomorrow be presented with the first draft of a bill on judicial appointments - an area in which the transport minister Shane Ross has had fairly a outspoken position. Last week he again insisted there was no reason why the body set up to nominate judges shouldn't have a majority of members from outside the legal field.

It's quite clear that New Politics, a year old this week, is fairly slow at turning bills into law. This is partly because the government has given over so much Dáil time to an incohesive opposition. But it's also partly because Fine Gael, even in the last term when its government had the biggest ever Dáil majority, insists now on putting almost every bill through "pre-legislative scrutiny" in an Oireachtas committee. (Getting a legislature to pre-scrutinise legislation is a contradiction in terms, but ignore that for now.)

That means that only the most urgent of bills - like the Finance and Social Welfare Bills that collectively make up most of each year's Budget - are passed with any speed. If the new laws around the appointment of judges face a similar path, the courts are in for a rough period.

The Supreme Court of Ireland is nominally made up a Chief Justice and nine 'ordinary' members. The heads of the Court of Appeal and the High Court are also technically members but in practice, they have little role, busy as they are running their own courts. It's therefore fair to say that on an everyday basis, the court has 10 members.

The logjam over judicial appointments has already left the court one body short, due to the unexpected and untimely death of Adrian Hardiman last year. Had he lived as he might have expected. he would have sat on the bench until mandatory retirement in 2023.

Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald and the Chief Justice, Susan Denham. Denham is due for mandatory retirement this summer, with no agreed mechanism to pick her replacement.

But more vacancies are coming. One of the eight ordinary members, Justice Mary Laffoy, is due to turn 72 next month and faces mandatory retirement of her own. Another, Justice Peter Charleton, is running the Tribunal into the treatment of Garda whistleblowers and will be unavailable for court once its public business kicks off in a few weeks. Equally pressingly, Chief Justice Susan Denham is due for mandatory retirement when she turns 72 in August.

If her roles is not filled, the court must get by with six-and-a-half members and no formal Chief Justice. Should this happen, the president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Sean Ryan, would temporarily ascend to the higher role - but would have to run the country's two most senior courts at once.

Those who frequent the Law Library say the Supreme Court's workload has been reduced notably by the introduction of the Court of Appeal following a referendum in 2013. It therefore might be able to keep up its current productivity with a smaller bench.

But it is worth bearing in mind that the court generally sits in groups of three, five or seven judges - with the biggest panels of seven reserved for cases of the highest extreme importance on major issues of constitutional concern. Such issues also tend to arise at relative short notice. A court that has only seven members, one of whom is running a Tribunal, cannot hope to do so. If President Higgins were uncertain about the constitutionality of a proposed law and wanted to refer it for hearing, the mandatory panel of five will leave only one spare member to deal with administration and the organisation of cases. Otherwise it's limited to sitting in two triads with nobody else to preside over cases that are raised 'for mention' but not for full hearing.

This might all be a 'doomsday scenario' that might never arise. One wisened observer of the Four Courts recently told me that lawyers hate the current configuration of the High Court because drawing a panel of three from a pool of ten is too unpredictable, and introduces an element of lottery where certain judges might be more hospitable to certain arguments. Perhaps having a more finite batch to choose from could be welcome and provide more stable jurisprudence.

But either way the country's highest court will shortly find it running short of members, and at risk of being unable to fulfill the role it is specifically tasked to do. The legislation to break this logjam is needed quickly, and Fine Gael, Shane Ross and Fianna Fail will all need to be on board to deliver it.