Judicial appointments - A line crossed

Over recent years judges have shown that they sometimes confuse the independence from the Oireachtas they are entrusted with to something like a sanctified separation from the world they live in.

It is as if they, or at least some of them, imagine this protection from political interference is also an insulation from prevailing conditions in society.

This hubris, built up when deference was once everyday and expected, reached a peak when judges threatened a strike over pay cuts imposed on everyone during the darkest days of the recession.