Mick Clifford: Connolly bank case row shows how outrage depends on who’s in the firing line

Fine Gael’s attack on Catherine Connolly over her legal work has sparked righteous fury — but the outrage rings hollow

A mural of Independent Presidential Candidate Catherine Connolly by artist Emmalene Blake on South Dock Road, Dublin. Picture: Tom Honan

Is there anything as nauseous as politicians demented with righteous indignation over something they would happily engage in themselves in different circumstances?

Over the last few days, a range of senior politicians has been in danger of self combustion on the matter of plummeting standards in politics. 

The issue is a Fine Gael attack on Catherine Connolly for representing banks in repossession cases as a barrister and never mentioning it when later she attacked the banks for their conduct in the Dáil.

This has outraged some delicate flowers. 

Take Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty who finds such tactics as “scraping the bottom of the barrel”. Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns described the carry on as a “Trumpian social media attack ad”. Her colleague Gary Gannon declared the justice minister “must not remain silent on Fine Gael’s scurrilous attacks on the legal profession as part of a smear campaign”.

Then there is Ivana Bacik of Labour, who tells us that the Fine Gael stuff is “a new level of ‘nasty’” which “represents a craven and dangerous attack on a fundamental principle of the rule of law in our democratic system”.

The reality is that all the parties these politicians represent would be going in full force with their size 10s if the boot was on the other foot. 

Yet on this occasion, they are saying it represents an outrageous smear from the bottom of a Trumpian barrel.

Making a few tidy euro from banks in the courts on cases of repossession is not a ‘gotcha’ moment for Ms Connolly. It is embarrassing for somebody on the far left of the political spectrum, but the real issue is she will not address the matter with full frankness.

The question is whether Ms Connolly could or should have avoided representing banks if she was, and would go on to, criticise those same banks in her public role, even referring to them as “criminal”.

The 'taxi rank rule'

Let’s start with the so called ‘taxi rank rule’ that we’re told means a barrister must take a brief when asked if the case is in their area of practice. So a small solicitor in the wilds of West Cork rings a leading senior counsel in Dublin about an action involving two farmers and a bull. The proposed fee is fair to middling.

From Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty to Labour's Ivana Bacik, there's a bouquet of delicate flowers decrying Fine Gael's tactics when they'd do the same at a moment's notice. Picture: Niall Carson/PA

In the real world, our senior counsel has no notion of taking on such work. She doesn’t have to reject it outright. She might suggest referring it to a colleague who needs the work. If the West Cork solicitor is having none of it, the senior counsel can simply say that she has a big family occasion on the day in question. Is the independent legal system under threat if such a white lie is proffered, as is so often the case?

If Ms Connolly was on a panel used by the banks, she may have been under obligation to take the next repossession case. If she offered her name for such a panel, maybe she should say why she did so. It would be entirely understandable, considering the banks pay the most generous fees, but she certainly would not have been under any obligation to do so, as she appears to infer.

Conflict of interest 

She could have, as a public representative, claimed a conflict of interest. The barristers’ code of conduct say a practitioner “may be justified in refusing to accept instructions where a conflict of interest arises or is likely to arise”. Were she so disposed, she could have invoked a conflict based on her work as a public representative.

Plenty of barristers act for banks and there is nothing wrong with that. Precious few if any then go on to publicly castigate their erstwhile clients.

Ms Connolly, like many TDs, has spoken out in the Dáil about how the banks conducted themselves, and how people lost their homes after the 2008 crash. 

There is no record of her declaring she had financially benefitted from representing the banks, as appears to be the case. Surely those she claimed to be speaking for were entitled, at the least, to be told she had previous involvement in this area.

Are we really expected to believe that if it was Heather Humphreys who had been engaged in what Ms Connolly was engaged in, that those who sputtered outrage in the last few days would have been silent?

Fine Gael’s timing on raising this issue does smack of desperation. The professionalism of the Connolly campaign suggests that, in a reverse scenario, they would have raised and disseminated it much earlier to far greater effect. However, the questions are legitimate and no amount of faux outrage or spinning about smears changes that. 

It is highly unlikely that whatever emerges from this story will impact on Ms Connolly’s march to the Áras, but sometimes complete frankness rather than shifty positioning reflects better on the candidate, even if it involves some discomfort.