Michael Clifford: Let's lay down the law on accountability

Golfgate was off course but what about political patronage? 

Ireland's former EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan (left) who resigned this week over the Oireachtas Golf Society controversy seen here with Supreme Court judge Séamus Woulfe, who  attended the same event. Is it healthy for a democracy that Mr Woulfe, and others, got a direct leap from the cabinet as attorney general to an elevated perch on the Supreme Court bench, asks our columnist Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

The Supreme Court in Dublin’s Four Courts building was packed on June 21, 2017 to welcome Séamus Woulfe as the new Attorney General. Chief Justice Susan Denham told the gathering about the importance of the independence of the office to which Mr Woulfe had been appointed, noting its “weighty national importance”.

The ceremony was followed by another one welcoming Mr Woulfe’s immediate predecessor, Máire Whelan, to the bench as a judge of the Appeals Court. As one AG was stepping out, another was stepping in. And within three years Mr Woulfe would be taking his place on the bench as a judge of the Supreme Court.