One of the things about the news in Ireland is that it is riddled – riddled – with stories that really should be monumentally big stories, but at which most people just shrug their shoulders. Here is a prime example:
The Attorney General is acting in a private capacity for former directors of Independent News & Media in their dealings with High Court inspectors who are investigating the company’s affairs.
The inspectors were appointed by the High Court following a request from the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE), the State authority responsible for enforcing business law.
Following questions on Wednesday from The Irish Times, it emerged that the Attorney General, Paul Gallagher, was granted permission by the Government to deal with a number of outstanding cases after his appointment.
Let’s put this in very simple terms: Independent News and Media is being investigated by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. The ODCE is a Government agency, staffed by Government lawyers. Those lawyers ultimately report to a Department advised by state’s most senior lawyer: The Attorney General.
And yet, the Attorney General is, in a private capacity, also representing the defendants, Independent News and Media. By any standard, it is a stunning, mesmerising, astounding conflict of interest.
The Government’s line is that the Attorney General was granted permission to deal with a number of outstanding cases after his appointment. That would, in the normal course of affairs, be unusual, but hardly indefensible. If, for example, the AG was involved in a number of personal injury cases, or defamation cases, in which the state had no direct interest, one might understand it.
But in this, very high profile case, the Attorney General, the Government’s top lawyer, is actually acting….. against the Government.
There is no particularly good or obvious reason why the Government had to agree to this arrangement in return for appointing the Attorney General. It is not uncommon, or unusual, for lawyers to pass their briefs in cases to colleagues when circumstances arise where they can no longer act for a client. Sometimes clients sack them. Sometimes a conflict of interest emerges. Sometimes it may simply be ill-health. In any case, lawyers withdrawing from cases is not without precedent. It is, in fact, very common.
It should be noted, too, that the INM case is no ordinary case. The company stands accused, effectively, of spying on journalists. The whole thing is connected to Denis O’Brien’s ongoing legal difficulties arising from the report of the Moriarty Tribunal, and to O’Brien’s case alleging a conspiracy to defame him by the Red Flag PR company and others.
It should be a relatively straightforward principle that lawyers can not simultaneously represent both parties in a case. In this instance, the Attorney General’s day job is to represent the State. And his nixer is to represent Independent News and Media against the state. You or I, to be sure, would not get away with it.
But, as noted at the outset, most people will just shrug their shoulders, and move on. It’s one of those stories, very common as they are, which should be a mega scandal, but, in Ireland, are just the way we do business, and have always done business.