Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

This is extremely relevant because we are talking about the politically appointed nature of the Judiciary and the need to move away from it. The jury system becomes extremely important in that context.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien was making the point that we were complaining about the way the jury had been stacked against us and then, when it did not go against us, that we all of a sudden had no problem. The point is that the attempt to stack the jury had failed. There was a public campaign which was necessary. It was in advance of any jury or juror being empanelled in the case. The judge rejected those proposals. Therefore, there was a different jury from that proposed by the prosecution. There was a jury of our peers which, obviously, found us not guilty. It was an utterly ignorant contribution from Deputy Darragh O'Brien. What would happen in the case proved the importance of campaigning on the issue to ensure we would not have a jury that was stacked against us.

To quote Deputy Darragh O'Brien in this debate: "They campaigned and many would say intimidated the members of the jury by sending out live tweets during that court case." He then, as the Acting Chairman recognised, withdrew the remark but only as regards intimidation. He went on to say: "...there were questions and campaigns by members of Solidarity-People Before Profit against the jury selection. That happened and you cannot dispute that." It is absolutely incredible. To say explicitly that jurors were intimidated by tweets being sent - it was a robust jury system, a jury that saw the evidence in front of their eyes for ten weeks - the actual trial was nine weeks - that saw the evidence of garda after garda being contradicted by video evidence-----

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