NO CAMPAIGN:THE SOLICITOR who represented former senator Ivor Callely in his successful High Court action to overturn the findings of an Oireachtas committee has come out in opposition to the 30th Amendment to the Constitution.
The constitutional change, also known as the “Abbeylara amendment”, proposes giving powers to Oireachtas committees to hold inquiries into matters of general public importance and to make findings of fact about any person’s conduct in that context.
In July 2010, a Seanad committee found Mr Callely had misrepresented his normal place of residence when claiming allowances.
The High Court found that his right to fair procedures and natural justice had been breached and the latter decision is being appealed to the Supreme Court.
In a letter to The Irish Times, solicitor Noel O’Hanrahan of Fairview, Dublin, expresses concern that the amendment would give “a political lynch-mob the right to make a political judgment on their political adversaries”.
“Such an inquiry could also be used to shift the blame for government blunders to citizens who will be forced to carry the can when the primary responsibility may lie with the Government,” he adds.
Mr O’Hanrahan writes that “alleged financial savings cannot justify handing over the right to destroy the citizen’s reputation to a committee of vote-hungry hyenas”.
Meanwhile, a key figure in initiating the Callely inquiry has also written to The Irish Times to express opposition to the proposed amendment.
John Mulligan of Kiltycreighton, Boyle, Co Roscommon, lodged a complaint to the Clerk of the Seanad in May 2010 in respect of claims by Mr Callely for travel expenses from his holiday home in west Cork.
“I simply felt as a citizen and a taxpayer that I had been pushed too far,” he writes.
But Mr Mulligan comments further: “My experience of the examination of Senator Callely in the committee hearings would not give me confidence in the ability of politicians to investigate any matter in the best interests of the public”.
