FG members echo Connolly challenge — but some express disquiet: 'Video made a balls of it'

Senior Fine Gael politicians who also work as lawyers insist that they never represented banks

Catherine Connolly was the subject of an attack video posted by Fine Gael on Sunday. File picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews 

Several Fine Gael politicians have insisted that they have never represented banks during their legal work, amid discontent in some quarters of the party about an “attack video” criticising Catherine Connolly.

The Independent presidential candidate has refused to say whether she represented banks in repossession cases. However, she has argued that the cab-rank rule means that barristers must take on work.

Fine Gael TDs Paula Butterly and Barry Ward — who are both barristers — and Colm Burke, a solicitor, each said that they had not represented banks.

Mr Burke said that he had represented individuals in cases with banks.

Mr Ward, the Fine Gael TD for Dún Laoghaire, told the Irish Examiner that Ms Connolly is correct about the cab-rank rule. However, the criminal barrister said that his issue is with her non-disclosure of her work with banks in the Dáil rather than the work itself.

Connolly's 'lack of openness' 

“She doesn’t have to declare exactly whom she appeared for but to stand up in the Dáil and suggest that banks are behaving in a criminal way, having been one of their agents, without saying that you were one of their agents, I think is ethically grey,” he said.

“I make a point of regularly saying that I’m a criminal defence barrister. 

Barrister and Dún Laoghaire Fine Gael TD Barry Ward: 'To stand up in the Dáil and suggest that banks are behaving in a criminal way, having been one of their agents, without saying that you were one of their agents, I think is ethically grey.'

"Last Friday week, I said on [Newstalk’s] Pat Kenny I defend people all the time who are unsavoury and whom I don’t like or agree with. 

"That’s not the point. It’s really important that barristers feel they can defend whoever they need to defend.”

It would be grossly unfair if one party to the system couldn’t get representation because they were politically incorrect or out of favour, he said. He added: 

I would defend anyone but I wouldn’t hide it. If you believe in the rule, then why would you not be open about it?

“I’m not saying [Ms Connolly] should say, ‘Well, I worked for [the name of the] bank.’ She should never have to, in the same way that I don’t name anyone that I’ve represented.”

Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan and Senator Cathal Byrne, a barrister and solicitor respectively, did not respond to queries from the Irish Examiner.

Disquiet in FG about the video  

Politicians in Fine Gael expressed some unhappiness about the video posted by the party about Ms Connolly.

“It was unnecessary,” said one parliamentary party member. “There are loads of questions about Catherine Connolly without resorting to that kind of thing.”

Another said that while they believed the point was valid, the video had “made a balls” of getting the point across.

Senior Fine Gael sources were standing by the video yesterday, arguing it had gone “viral” and had attracted more positive reactions that negative ones.