Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

As I said in my speech, the discovery process for the Supreme Court hearings started in parallel with the discovery process for the Travers report. I remember getting a call and being told about the Keane judgment. I was surprised to hear that the Government had been advised in such strong terms in 1978 that this was wrong. As a result, the State did not argue in the Supreme Court case that it had acted in good faith. The advice given to me by the Attorney General was based on his belief that we were acting in good faith.

I was also asked about retrospection. Of course I wanted to try to protect taxpayers' money by making this legal retrospectively and going forward. The Supreme Court made it clear that the legislation was not struck down on the basis of retrospection, or on the basis of Article 15.5.1° of the Constitution. It was struck down because the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to take away people's property rights without compensating them. The only circumstances in which it would be constitutional to do that would be if it were to cause a disequilibrium in the public finances. The Supreme Court took the view that the sum of money involved would not cause such difficulty in the public finances. given the current state of the economy. The legislation was struck down on the basis of property rights and not on the basis of retrospection.

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