‘What business is it of TDs the model of Audi Kerins drove?’
ANGELA Kerins should never have been asked by TDs ‘what model of Audi’ her company car was when she was being questioned about her pay and conditions, her lawyers have claimed.
The former Rehab charity chief went to the Supreme Court yesterday to begin an ‘unprecedented’ legal challenge that is being heard by the country’s seven most senior judges.
The court was told how she ‘selfharmed’ after being ‘blackguarded’ for seven hours by the Public Accounts Committee (Pac) in February 2014 – and her lawyers said she later spoke out because she hoped that no one else would ever have to suffer like she did.
Previously, Ms Kerins said she wrote notes to her family in March 2014 before consuming ‘a large quantity of pills and some alcohol’ in a failed suicide bid.
She claims the public questioning session at the Pac ‘changed her life forever’ and that no one else should ever have to suffer in the same way. If successful, Ms Kerins’s case – which centres on the separation of powers between the Dáil and the courts – could have a major impact on how the Oireachtas investigates how public money is spent.
In February 2014, after the Pac turned its focus on the use of taxpayers’ money in the charity sector, Ms Kerins, 58, attended the watchdog voluntarily to answer questions. She was questioned about her six-figure salary, bonuses, the value of her company Audi A4 and alleged trips by helicopter.
Yesterday, her barrister John Rogers SC complained that she was asked ‘intrusive’ questions by TDs at the public Pac hearing on February 27, 2014 – including ‘what model of Audi’ was her company car. Mr Rogers told Chief Justice Frank Clarke and six other judges: ‘That may seem a trivial thing. Whose business is it? And why is it being raised?’
The barrister added that she was ‘blackguarded’ and ‘disparaged’ by TDs and assailed with ‘rhetorical condemnations by deputies who have a free rein on rhetoric’.
She later sued the TDs who made up the Pac in 2014 – including John McGuinness, Shane Ross, Mary Lou McDonald and Simon Harris – and the State for damages. But she lost her case in January 2017, when three High Court judges ruled that ‘the effective functioning of parliament would be impaired’ if TDs were restricted in what they could say in parliament.
However, she was spared the bulk of an estimated €1million legal bill for the case because her case raised some important legal issues. As highlighted by the Irish Daily Mail last year, the TDs are appealing against that costs decision. Their appeal is also due to get underway before the end of the week.
Yesterday, Mr Rogers told the Supreme Court that although TDs do enjoy ‘absolute privilege’, in principle, over anything they say in parliament, it would be a ‘fright to every citizen’ if the courts truly have no function in relation to anything said in the Houses of the Oireachtas.
‘What we are talking about is utterances directed at individual citizens [like Ms Kerins] who are present and are being blackguarded by deputies. Blackguarded is what happened in this case,’ Mr Rogers reasoned.
Explaining her rationale for taking her fight all the way to the Supreme Court this week, Mr Rogers argued that if Ms Kerins’s ‘legacy’ is to ‘save’ other citizens from ‘attacks’ similar to those she had suffered, then her distress will not have been in vain.
Ms Kerins had ‘self-harmed’ after the first PAC hearing of February 2014 – but she had not revealed this before submitting a document shortly before her High Court case, Mr Rogers said. Her High Court case was heard over at least ten days in 2015 and 2016. But she decided to disclose it because she hoped that no one would ever again have to go through what she experienced, Mr Rogers said.
Mr Rogers told the senior judges: ‘This is a case with which we, the people, will live… The Constitution, Article 40, says to us that our citizens have a right to a good name.’
Ms Kerins sat at the back of the court in a black, white and purple floral dress with black cardigan and pearl necklace.
The case will be decided by Chief Justice Frank Clarke and judges Elizabeth Dunne, Iseult O’Malley, Mary Finlay Geoghegan, Liam McKechnie, John MacMenamin and Donal O’Donnell.
Hearings are expected to continue for the rest of the week.
Consumed ‘a large quantity of pills’ ‘Blackguarded by deputies’