Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The row between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over the appointment of Ms Máire Whelan by the Cabinet to the Court of Appeal has dominated politics for six days. While there are important issues at stake, the row has taken the form of a spat between two factions of the ruling elite in this country.

The story of the Irish Judiciary and of the judicial appointments system is a story of class privilege and establishment political interests from start to finish. On the one hand in this spat, we have Fine Gael, now led by the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar. Having recently emerged victorious from an inner party contest against another ex-private school boy and having appointed a Cabinet described by an anonymous member of his own party as lads in suits, the Cabinet which looks like a group photo before a stag party, the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, has decided to stand over an old-fashioned political stroke. On the other hand, Deputy Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil, allies of Fine Gael in implementing austerity and in attempting to hold the centre against the left, fell out with their Fine Gael allies on this issue, but their bluff has been successfully called because having voted to allow the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, come to power on a Wednesday, they are not going then to bring the Government down by the weekend, and of course, Fianna Fáil, as a party of the capitalist establishment, is a beneficiary of the judicial appointments system.

In 2011, the Irish Independentestimated that 56 of the 168 judges on the Bench in this State, in other words, one third, has "personal or political connections to political parties". I can assure the House that there are no judges on the Bench who have personal or political connections to Solidarity-People Before Profit.

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