TD ON GOLFGATE FALLOUT: ADOPT THE US MODEL IN APPOINTING JUDGES

Clamour for reform in fallout from interview

IRELAND should have a US- style system, in which judges go before a panel of judges before appointment, one independent TD has demanded.

Mattie McGrath made his call on a day of sustained demands for greater scrutiny of the judiciary, in the wake of the Golfgate review of Supreme Court J udge Séamus Woulfe’s attendance at the event.

Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall told RTÉ radio the affair showed that legislation was needed to draft new ethics guidelines for judges, and it should not be left to ‘vested interests’.

And Deputy McGrath said greater scrutiny was now needed after Judge Denham found Judge Woulfe should not have gone to the event in Galway.

The outcry from the opposition

‘It should not be left to vested interests’

comes after the transcript of Judge Woulfe’s interview for the review was published.

It says he only had a ‘hazy’ understanding of the Covid guidelines. The details of his understanding are included in a summary of his actions on the day of the highly controversial Oireachtas Golf Society dinner in Clifden.

The summary accompanied the report by former Chief Justice Susan Denham into the judge’s role in the affair.

It also emerged that Judge Woulfe told the then government he would have preferred to stay on as Attorney General than be appointed to the Supreme Court.

As Attorney General, he Woulfe was ‘ in constant contact with politicians and had ‘advised on legislation restricting activity during the Covid-19 pandemic’, Judge Denham noted.

‘He stated that gatherings of 50 people were allowed under the regulations. These were the regulations in which he had b een involved in the Attorney General’s office,’ she added.

In her summary Judge Denham notes: ‘He said he was aware of the regulations which were in force on the 19th August, 2020.

‘Gatherings of 50 people were allowed under those regulations.

He would have been aware in a very general hazy way that there were detailed guidelines and rules about all that but that the whole point was to reopen the country,’ she said, after interviewing him about his understanding of the rules.

The judge had also said that the hope for the reopening of the country had changed.

‘He stated that that had changed, unfortunately. This was almost on the cusp of that change, but the Government policy had been for people to go and support hotels and events. The hotels could have 50 people at an event. Thus, when the dinner was mentioned Mr Justice Woulfe was cautious,’ Judge Denham wrote.

Her report noted the discussions around his application f or a judgeship.

He had told the then taoiseach Leo Varadkar that he would be putting in an application to the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board but that it did not mean he was not happy to stay on as Attorney General, and that his preference would have been to stay on as the Attorney General and to help the new Government, Ms Denham noted. In July, he was nominated by the Government to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, which arose following the retirement of the Judge Mary Finlay Geoghegan.

Judge Woulfe has not yet sat as a judge of the Supreme Court.

Judge Denham found that he did not break any law or knowingly breach any guidelines and that it would be ‘unjust and disproportionate’ for him to resign for attending the Oireachtas Golf Society event while the country was under coronavirus restrictions in August.

In his interview Judge Woulfe also said the media were hoping he would resign in the aftermath of dinner because i t would have ‘added fuel to the fire’, and that the controversy was like ‘a bomb had gone off ’.

Judge Woulfe, who said he had spoken to Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Clarke before attend

ing the event in Clifden, said that i t would have been ‘ ridiculous’ for him to phone the Chief Justice to seek Judge Clarke’s advice, when he was at the event.

‘Ah, no. I think that would have been ridiculous, with respect, Judge, I really do,’ Judge Woulfe told Judge Denham.

‘You know, I don’t think an adult person on holidays in that kind of sense would go bothering the Chief Justice at that stage. Particularly, there was nothing to spark off bother in my mind that there was any question going back to him,’ he said. Judge Denham noted that Judge Woulfe played in a Bar Golf Society outing in Baltray, Co. Louth, on Saturday July 25, ‘with a large group of barristers and judges’.

She noted: ‘ This was the first golf society outing that he had played in since the easing of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, and on that occasion they ate in groups of four as they came in off the golf course. They did not eat together later as a bigger group.’