Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have rechecked this point because the then Minister, Deputy Harris, made that argument on Committee Stage to my colleague. I am empathically advised that because someone is a High Court judge does not mean that he or she has contempt of court powers unless he or she is sitting as a judge in a court with a court registrar in front of him or her. If the judge is sitting in a tribunal of inquiry or at Doheny & Nesbitt, he or she does not have compellability powers. That is the clear advice I have been given, but the Minister is implying that, simply because the person happens to be a judge, those powers are available to him or her in whatever function he or she is performing. Is that the Minister’s contention? It is not what I understand to be the case.

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