PAC ‘set aside rule book with war on Kerins’

The State is liable in damages to former Rehab CEO Angela Kerins because the Dáil Public Accounts Committee subjected her to a “war” in breach of her constitutional rights, the High Court has been told.

John Rogers, counsel for Ms Kerins, said the State’s liability arises because members of the Dail Public Accounts Committee set aside the “rule book” and subjected Ms Kerins to a “war”, making “devastating”, “hurtful”, “grievously damaging” and “outrageous” statements about her at two public hearings in 2014.

Those “statements of fact, expressions of opinion and assertions of wrongdoing” were immediately released in the public domain and are “wholly irretrievable”, he said.

A three-judge High Court is hearing final arguments concerning whether the PAC had jurisdiction to conduct the two hearings on February 27 and April 2014 concerning public payments to Rehab as it had.

Ms Kerins claims the hearings amounted to an unlawful “witch hunt” against her outside the PAC’s jurisdiction and wants damages on grounds including alleged personal injury, loss of reputation and loss of career.

The PAC argues it had jurisdiction to conduct the hearings as it did and is entitled to scrutinise how public funds are spent in a context including that €80m public monies are paid annually to Rehab companies.

Ms Kerins claims she was so overwhelmed by what happened at the February 27 hearing, she later attempted to take her life and could not attend the April 10 hearing.

Yesterday Mr Rogers argued Sinn Féin TD Mary Lou MacDonald and Independent TD Shane Ross, now a minister, engaged in “egregious” behaviour towards Ms Kerins at the hearings.

“She was bullied, let’s call a spade a spade.”

She was “traduced” during the two hearings but the then PAC chairman John McGuinness failed to protect her and rather gave a “judgment” against her at the April hearing when she was not there, counsel said.

While the PAC argued Ms Kerins had appeared before it voluntarily, that voluntariness was “prised away” by what happened, including Ms Kerins and other Rehab witnesses being asked about her salary and other private matters, including the pension of former Rehab chairman Frank Flannery and “entirely private” enterprises the Rehab Group was trying to make profits from. This had “nothing to do” with the provision of rehabilitation services.

The hearings became an “adversarial examination” not at all mandated, he argued. Ms Kerins was unable to attend the April hearing and it could not be claimed she consented to what happened there, including witnesses from Rehab being asked about a complaint against her and to “condemn” her.

At this point, her constitutional rights to her good name, to privacy, to constitutional fairness are all engaged, he said.

Maurice Collins, counsel for the State, said Ms Kerins had not pleaded a case against it under Article 40.3 of the Constitution (requiring the State vindicate the personal rights of the citizen), and cannot now do so. Her claim against the State is confined to a claim of vicarious liability for alleged acts of the PAC, which claim is denied, he said.