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

I find it quite outrageous, to be honest, that after two weeks of ducking and diving by the Government, in trying to shield the Minister from questioning, we have received a statement that goes on for ten minutes and manages to avoid the central issue about which questions have been raised. The central issue is, if the Minister's story is accurate, on what basis did she decide that Séamus Woulfe would be the name she would recommend to the Cabinet? On what basis did she decide it would be him rather than the other judges on the memorandum before her? It is astounding that the Minister can manage to speak for ten minutes while avoiding the central matter about which questions have been asked repeatedly.

Everybody knows what this controversy is about. It is about whether Séamus Woulfe was a political appointee. Was there a deal between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that Fianna Fáil would get the Attorney General if Fine Gael got its former Attorney General on to the Supreme Court? Did Fine Gael pull a fast one? Either way, is Séamus Woulfe now on the Supreme Court because he is close to Fine Gael and was a Fine Gael activist? That is the central question.

The dogs in the street are in no doubt about the answer to that question. As Deputy Catherine Murphy implied, in a way the Tánaiste gave the game away in speaking in the Dáil on 19 November, pointing towards the truth of the arrangements that had taken place. For those outside who see it as glaringly obvious that this is a political appointee, there are very good reasons for such thinking. In 2011, the Irish Independentdid a survey of judges, finding one in three has personal or political connections to political parties. That is wildly disproportionate to what happens in society at large. We do not have that kind of mass participation, where one in three people in society is a member of a political party.

It should be noted, of course, that we will not find judges that are personally and politically connected to parties of the socialist left. It is overwhelmingly the case they are connected to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the traditional establishment parties of Irish capitalism that are wildly over-represented within the Judiciary. It is perfectly normal, as Deputy Bríd Smith has mentioned, to have political appointees, unfortunately.

The story presented by the Minister is not at all credible but let us take it on its merits. We will have a chance to ask questions and, I hope, get some answers on it shortly. The Minister described a timeline.

On 29 June, she is appointed as Minister. On 6 July, she gets a memorandum, which includes the name of Séamus Woulfe but also includes, importantly, other names. On 15 July, she brings a memorandum to Cabinet and a recommendation, with the other names stripped out and Séamus Woulfe's name alone remaining. That is the essential part of the Minister's narrative and, crucially, apparently between 6 July and 15 July, or earlier if she knew earlier, the newly-appointed Minister, who was two weeks in the job at that stage, does not talk to a sinner about it. She does not talk to the Tánaiste and her party leader, to the Taoiseach or to the leader of the Green Party, although that might not surprise people. She does not talk to the Attorney General, the Secretary General of her Department or to a sinner. Instead, she looks deep inside her heart and decides, "Yes, this one". Séamus Woulfe is the man for the job as opposed to all these other people. It is very blatantly and very obviously not credible at all. It very clearly is not what took place.

There is a question that flows from that. If it is the case that on 6 July the Minister got a memorandum with a number of names, chose to strip out names and leave one remaining and bring that to Cabinet and the Government decided to appoint Séamus Woulfe as a Supreme Court judge, on what basis can it be said that the Government met and acted as a collective authority? Article 28.4.2° of the Constitution is clear that the "Government shall meet and act as a collective authority". Never mind bringing the names, did the Minister even inform the Cabinet that there were a number of possible options? Did the Minister bring that information to Cabinet? It cannot have acted collectively if it did not know that there were other applications and thought there was only one from Séamus Woulfe.

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