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Helen McEntee, turning her face against the blindingly obvious, stood her ground and held firm to her threadbare lines, holding up extremely well for someone with just one leg to stand on.
She chose her spot on the wall and concentrated for two hours on missing the point, repeating the same unsatisfying spiel until Ceann Comhair called her in time and released her from questioning.
This was Dáil’s highly anticipated and highly resisted showdown between the Minister of Justice and the united forces of the Opposition over her decision to appoint the outgoing attorney general appointed by Fine Gael to the Supreme Court after she took office in a new Coalition. Government under a Fianna Fáil Taoiseach.
“I am pleased to expose the details of this appointment for the information of the deputies,” she began, also happy to ignore the fact that she was only there because the wild horses dragged her to the Convention Center and the teams of city hall workers were outside completing the deep grooves her heels left in the asphalt between Iveagh House and Spencer Dock.
The government was so keen to keep its minister out of Dáil’s due scrutiny on the matter that it held out for more than a fortnight until the weight of pressure forced an embarrassing downfall from a previously optimistic Taoiseach.
Many people assumed this was because they feared that Cabinet Prime Minister McEntee would not be in a position to withstand the pressure of a hostile and sustained challenge from a fiery opposition when the issue to be defended was more or less indefensible.
An experienced politician
A nice, quiet-voiced young lady like Helen would probably pass out or start crying. Not one bit. She is an experienced politician.
The reason why Micheál Martin (who comes out of this saga looking like a Fine Gael scapegoat) and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar (who comes out of this looking like a scoundrel) were so determined to screw up this independent briefing with the Minister was because they knew they would send it to justify a disaster they created. No wonder she seemed awkward as her brave bosses dropped her.
Opposition spokesmen queued up to tell him that no one believes that he selected Séamus Woulfe on his own account for his promotion to the highest court in the country without seeking the advice of any sector before making his decision.
They lined up to tell you that they are not stupid and they know that judges in this country are often, but not always, appointed for their political connections.
They queued up to tell her that they know the official procedure and it’s not the way she selectively presents it.
In a scathingly incisive contribution, former Labor leader Brendan Howlin, a veteran of three governments, nailed the Coalition’s cynicism and McEntee’s dilemma. You have sat in the cabinet, you know how it works. All high-level appointments were the subject of inter-party discussions.
The justice minister can formally propose a name to the cabinet when deliberation is made, but “never, never was it the role or the exclusive right of that minister to determine on his own who should be nominated,” he said.
‘Done deal’
Based on her years of experience, the minister’s claim that she put this process aside and presented it as a “closed deal” to the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and leader of the Greens and they “just nodded their heads as a done deal” it was evidently “absurd”. He filleted his boring story and, in the process, filleted Varadkar and Martin. “What is undermining their position and undermining the credibility of the government is maintaining the incredible.”
Maintaining that history was McEntee’s sole goal. He focused almost exclusively on something called “The Process” that “is what it is” and was “accomplished” throughout. But he embellished the story too much, as is often the case in these situations, by introducing a new detail.
She revealed that Varadkar, the leader of Fine Gael, her boss, former taoiseach and now Tánaiste, told her when it was the fledgling Minister of Justice with no practical experience in the law who knew the process existed. She said she had already been “alerted” to the existence of the process and then Varadkar commented in passing that Séamus Woulfe was in the process and thought he would probably be a good judge, but that didn’t mean much to McEntee because she doesn’t. make “criteria”.
“What I hope I have done this afternoon is very clear that there is a process to appoint a judge,” he told Dáil after two hours of processing fudge disguised as his explanation of the “process” and how he implemented it.
Howlin recognized what was happening. Rather than acknowledge that the policy was behind the legally and constitutionally sound designation, if not best practice, the government tried to cover this up.
“As Richard Nixon discovered, it is not always the action that is your downfall, sometimes it is the tension involved in presenting a version of events that for anyone who really knows the process or simply follows the politics or history, is not credible. “.
Eligible legal names
So how did the Minister come to choose Woulfe, who never sat on the bench, out of the five sitting justices who ran and over an additional list of eligible legal names worthy of consideration?
We may never know because the Minister “had no criteria.” He just thought hard, on his own, didn’t even ask any of the many experts at the Justice Department steeped in the niceties of court appointments much longer than his rainy weekend at Iveagh House. But when McEntee found out, she just knew. Like someone who says “I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like,” they just walked in and got excited about Séamus.
And Varadkar (well, she told McEntee that she thought Séamus would make a good judge, although that didn’t influence her) and Martin and Ryan said it was okay for them and fired Judge Woulfe with their blessing.
Irish judiciary
“One of the great strengths of the Irish judiciary has been its non-political characteristics,” McEntee said while reviewing the prepared script.
“I was laughing out loud when I heard you say that,” laughed Bríd Smith of People Before Profit. Without a doubt, it was one of the best lines of the day.
But there was sympathy, a bit, for McEntee. Catherine Murphy, of the Social Democrats, and the independent Catherine Connolly, were among the deputies who sympathized with her for “receiving a hospital pass.”
Séamus was indicated to be in the frame (Martin and Ryan were never told about the other contenders) and McEntee presented his judicial fait accompli to Cabinet.
Suddenly, the name that had been in the back of our minds while McEntee was bravely, albeit very uncomfortable following the party line, came to us.
And it was Gráinne Carruth’s name. The woman who worked for Bertie Ahern as a secretary and went through misery on the witness stand of the Mahón court when, torn between her loyalty to Bertie and her sincere desire to do the right thing, broke down and wept.
He didn’t have to put her through that. McEntee didn’t deserve to be in the position he was in on Thursday either.
At teatime, Fine Gael was deploying young minister Colm Brophy on Drivetime radio. Even he was reeling.
“Well, I think what the Minister said there was perfectly credible,” he bragged. “She followed the process.”
Every Brasso in the world couldn’t cope with Brophy’s remarkable neck
Later, James Lawless de Fianna Fáil, chairman of the Justice Committee, tried to make the best of the situation.
“We are where we are… For us to learn” was the best he could handle. He thought there were “multiple learnings emerging.” And let’s not forget “we have a looming pandemic.”
It is not a great day for the Government.
Go by any criteria.
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