Golfgate: Former Cork judge says Seamus Woulfe should 'let it play out'

Former district court judge Michael Pattwell says he would not resign if he was in Seamus Woulfe's position. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Former district court judge Michael Pattwell has said that Supreme Court judge Seamus Woulfe “should get a good PR person to help him” and that if he was in that situation he would “let it play out” and not resign.

The Chief Justice and the Supreme Court have “backed themselves into a corner” he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.

There was no law to back the stance taken by the other members of the Supreme Court, he said. 

Mr Pattwell said he could not see any efforts at impeachment succeeding, “political or otherwise.” 

What had happened following the Oireachtas golf dinner in Clifden was “not serious enough” to warrant the resignation of the judge, he added. Both Seamus Woulfe and Phil Hogan had been “quite arrogant in how they handled it”.

The Chief Justice should not have “invented a sanction” that did not exist in law and he would have been better “keeping it to himself", Mr Pattwell added. 

"There was nothing to back up what he said, it’s just an opinion.

If I was Seamus Woulfe I would stay and let it play out.

All of what had transpired had come about because “Dara Calleary jumped too soon,” he said. “He set the tone then.” 

While he had “never been a fan” of Phil Hogan, Mr Pattwell said that he had seemed to be doing a good job in Europe.

On the same programme, former Minister Shane Ross also said that the Supreme Court had backed itself into a corner on the issue. 

Retired chief justice Susan Denham had been asked to conduct an investigation, but her recommendation had been ignored by Justice Clarke.

Politicians don’t want to touch the issue, he said.