As the Presidential election enters its final days some politicians are angry that politics is playing a role. It’s an interesting approach. Fine Gael have resorted to using Catherine Connolly’s work as a barrister representing banks in repossession cases during the financial crash as evidence of her hypocrisy when it comes to her socialist policy.
Fine Gael circulated a video broken by Gript wherein Connolly, then a city councillor, was fiercely critical of the housing crisis, the then government and the banks.
The party said this was a time when she was employed as a barrister by banks in home repossession cases. Connolly has said she did “all kinds of work” but refused to give any details of the cases she was involved in.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns described the video 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.”
As for the ad being Trumpian, I will only say we wish. President Trump wins elections. FG will lose this. President Trump ran an extremely effective social media campaign which sealed his unexpected Presidential victory in 2016. He did so again 8 years later where he cut across all the mainstream platforms to cruise to victory including taking the popular vote. MAGA and Trump are an electoral force of nature, putting America First. Fine Gael is a political party that puts the NGOs and those who wish to run IPAS centres first. That’s not the same thing.In Ireland we have two slightly older versions of Kamala Harris and we are supposed to just go along with this farce of an election.
A quick word on this issue of Catherine Connolly representing the banks and the cab rank rule that is being used to defend her.
The cab rank rule is there to protect us, the public. It is there to ensure we can secure legal representation should we be arrested, fall behind on our mortgage, find ourselves divorced or in a custody dispute or God forbid the State deems us a threat to our children. It is there so we can sue the business that chops our arm off etc etc.
It is not there to protect barristers who later become politicians. That’s not the point of the rule.
The reason and importance of the cab rank rule was restated in 2023. “Barristers do not choose their clients nor do they associate themselves with their clients’ opinions or behaviour by virtue of representing them. The cab rank rule:
I have been called to the bar in Dublin and London (Gray’s Inn.) I practiced as a criminal defence barrister in London for a short time.
The cab rank rule at the bar is important but this does not mean barristers have to take every case offered or that their legal practice over a number of years should have no bearing on how the public view them as a politician.
Barristers as they develop a career can specialise in an area and then specialise in a particular area of that area. Some barristers only do fraud. Some barristers only defend in sexual offences. Some barrister only ‘do commercial.’ Others do only medical negligence and within that negligent births. There is a huge difference between these areas not least in how they are remunerated.
If a barrister specialises in only defending people charged with rape or crimes against children they are entitled to do that. If however that barrister then enters politics and says they are a feminist and will fight violence against women and girls, the voter is entitled to be sceptical of this.
Of course a barrister could say that because they have seen how the criminal justice system operates in that area, how it treats complainants/victims and that they have expertise in that area as a result of their career as a barrister, the voter can judge them on this.
If a barrister spends large amounts of their career acting for banks who seek to evict owners or renters who fail to meet their financial obligations (as is the right of the bank) and then enters politics on a broad socialist platform the voter can consider this. Is there hypocrisy or was the hardship involved what motivated her to enter politics on a socialist basis?
We don’t know how many cases Connolly herself did for the banks. It is unlikely she made an entire career out of this. I suspect – and this is speculative but based on my experience as a barrister – she actually needed the work and the money. I assume she was not well connected at the bar, she didn’t have someone to fund her first few years there which if you are at the Irish bar you basically have to have. (It was one of the reasons I went to London). Catherine Connolly’s work at the bar is relevant but on reflection I wouldn’t hold it against her until I knew more. What I do hold against her all are her hard left policies. The fact that she worked for the banks to enforce property rights is arguably the best thing about her.
It says a lot however that Fine Gael are using this. I’m not too sure that Connolly’s previous work for the banks is going to be held against her by middle – class voters. Her base are true believers and will see this as a ‘below the belt’ hit. So it will make little impact.
The left have a candidate that they believe in and are united behind. The right has no such candidate. They had a shot at putting one forward but FG and FF made sure that didn’t happen and we are left with the very uninspiring Heather Humphreys. That’s on them.