Cassandra Voices

Tag: Melissa English

  • Judge the Strength of a Democracy by its Treatment of Whistleblowers

    In light of recent developments, not least, the announcement of Michael McGrath as the next EU Commissioner, it is timely to look again at the infernal plight of workers of conscience – those noble people who blow the whistle on wrongdoing, and who strive to keep a corroded system from descending further into the abyss.

    Until 2022, Michael McGrath was Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform (referred to henceforth as DPER). Under his Ministry, new EU protected disclosures legislation of 2014 was advancing, and also EU Directive number 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of Europe of 23 October 2019 was set to be transposed into Irish law.

    The provisions of this Directive give significant further protection to persons who expose breaches in EU law as provided for in the Irish Protected Disclosure Amendment Act 2014. The aforementioned EU Directive was only finally transposed into Irish law in January 2023 and the new Act became known as The Protected Disclosure Amendment Act 2022.

    This provision was, however, effectively sabotaged long before it was transposed, and Minister Michael McGrath was central to that. The entire Protected Disclosure Act is under the remit of DPER.

    Cynical Collusion

    The now sinister OPLA – Office of the Parliamentary Legal Advisor was exposed on these pages before in November 2022 and again in March 2023. Its rapid expansion appears to have been in anticipation of the significant effectiveness of this EU Resolution on Protected Disclosures to stem corruption and protect whistleblowers. Two things happened to neutralise and sabotage this EU provision before it was transposed:

    • The vast expansion of OPLA involved OPLA being placed, unconstitutionally, on the statute books in December 2018, just as the Dail was rising for its Christmas recess. It occurred with no committee stages, or debate. This was in defiance of the Dunning Capacity Report, into OPLA which was not sent back to the sub-committee on Dail reform for consideration in December 2016 by the Dail Clerk who received it from Dunning. Thus, Dunning’s report was effectively suppressed. The integration of the OPLA into the Houses of the Oireachtas as rank-and-file civil servants, under the Dail clerk (a civil service appointee) in the Executive Arm of Government, is, as pointed out, a violation of the constitutional Separation of Powers. The discovery that OPLA was secretly involved in the investigation of Protected Disclosures in defiance of the provisions of the Act since 2013, and that it was all set to escalate as per Dunning, exposes a sleight-of-hand to virtually cut the legs out from under whistleblowers, striking a lethal blow at an integral part of democracy. 
    • The unlawful appointment of the Ombudsman by the civil service body – the PAS (Public Appointment Service) – is a violation of the Ombudsman’s Act 1980, and subsequent amending acts. The Ombudsman Act specifically disallows the Ombudsman from being appointed by the civil service. The Ombudsman was also appointed as Commissioner for Protected Disclosures, another canny moved within DPER while Michael McGrath was Minister. The Ombudsman knew full well that the OPLA – since 2018 a civil service body – was already involved in the investigation of Protected Disclosures since 2013, and that this was considered the main area of “growth and challenge for OPLA.”

    I have been in email contact with the CEO of the PAS about this unlawful appointment of the Ombudsman. I accused her of stepping outside of her remit in the appointment of the Ombudsman and pointed out that the Ombudsman’s Act 1980 specifically excluded it as a civil service appointment. To this she replied that it was done by PAS as “sanctioned” by the then Minister, Michael McGrath.

    He has no power to unilaterally alter legislation. The competition for the Ombudsman’s job was held by the PAS in August 2021, when the Dail was in recess and during the holiday season. The only Irish applicant was Ger Deering. On the appointment board was David Moloney, SG in DPER who was central to the entire legislation, as it was progressing at Committee stages in the new Protected Disclosures Act. David Moloney merely continued what Robert Watt, whom he replaced, had commenced.

    Both David Moloney and the Ombudsman appeared before the Finance Committee, which was responsible for the deliberations into the Protected Disclosures legislation, and which met several times in 2021 and 2022 to discuss the enhanced the Protected Disclosure Bill 2014, and the EU Directive about to be transposed.

    David Moloney effectively misled the Finance Committee in failing to inform the Chair and members that the PAS, with the apparent collusion of Minister Michael McGrath, after unlawfully taking over the appointment of the Ombudsman, whom it was also decided would become the new Commissioner for Protected Disclosures.

    Ger Deering’s appointment is a Constitutional one, and it thereby had to be ratified by the Dail before he went to the Aras to get his seal of office from the President. Mr Deering appeared before the Finnance Committee and made a speech on his appointment in December 2021 for the purpose of his appointment being ratified by the Oireachtas.

    I contend that Deering also misled the Committee, whose members and Chairman seemed to have been unaware that the Ombudsman should not have been appointed by the civil service body – the PAS – by law. Deering knew that he would be using the unconstitutional OPLA as new Commissioner for investigating Protected Disclosures, but he never revealed that at the Finance Committee despite the fact that John McGuinness, the Committee’s chairman, discussed the plight of whistleblowers with him fairly extensively and name checked a number of better known ones.

    McGuinness and his committee approved Deering’s appointment on behalf of the Oireachtas and he duly went to the Aras to receive his seal of office from the President.

    Whistleblowers – The Walking Wounded

    The dual strategies of the newly expanded OPLA – an unconstitutional entity since 2018 – and the sabotage implicit in the appointment of the Ombudsman utterly neutralised the provision of the EU Directive on Protected Disclosures, even before the full transposal of the EU Directive in January 2023.

    It was all done by DPER under Michael McGrath as Minister. The senior civil service have dealt a mortal blow to democracy, with full ministerial collusion and, above all, have commenced the ongoing campaign against whistleblowers – the walking wounded in a deeply corrupt system.

    In 2022, at a meeting of the Finance Committee, which McGrath attended with his senior civil servants, including David Moloney, and where a number of whistleblowers were also present, the civil servants backed by McGrath managed to get the provision of the EU Directive on PDs known as ‘The Presumption of Causation’ excluded from the EU Directive as transposed.

    This had provided for the presumption of victimization of a whistleblower, who reports wrongdoing without the whistleblower having to prove victimization is as a result of whistleblowing. This, of itself, was a significant blow to the effectiveness of the EU Directive.

    Democracy Under Threat

    Democracy depends on five major planks:

    • A free, robust and independent press.
    • A free and independent judiciary.
    • A robust and independent police force.
    • Robust whistleblower legislation.
    • A functioning democratic parliament where issue of major public import can be raised under privilege.

    The combined forces of the OPLA and the unlawfully appointed Ombudsman has dealt a direct, mortal blow to at last three of the five planks listed above. OPLA is unlawfully involved in Protected Disclosures and in the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Labour Court – both courts are subordinate to the High Court and a significant number of whistleblowers prosecute their claims, or aspect of their claims, in the WRC/Labour Court.

    Above all, OPLA has dealt an absolute mortal blow to the Dail itself. Arguably it has paralysed our parliament: there are numerous examples of OPLA muscling in, in a very heavy handed way on Dail Committee, especially in cases brought under privilege by whistleblowers to the Committees.

    The Committee Chairpersons are gormlessly allowing this, and are being bullied by the Committee Clerks who, in turn, are taking their instructions from the Dail clerk, Peter Finnegan, himself the chief architect of the draconian new OPLA in December 2018.

    In a case I had with the CPPO Committee, the OPLA took over the case from its clerk designate. I pointed out to the head of OPLA that no Standing Order (SO) of the Oireachtas allowed for it and asked what allowed it. I received no reply from Melissa English, the Chief Parliamentary Legal Adviser, whom I have accused of unlawfully and unconstitutionally trespassing into the sacrosanct area of the Oireachtas and the Ceann Comhairle, in a violation of the Separation of Powers, and a blow to the prudent use of Dail privilege.

    Irish Prison Whistleblower Sean O’Brien. Image: Daniele Idini.

    Protected Disclosure Legislation Disabled

    As OPLA operates in secret in addition to its listed function in Dunning’s capacity report of December 2016 as listed below, it may well be involved with the Gardai, and indeed with media enquires as fielded by the more robust elements in the media. I know from personal experience that the Gardai co-operate with the Ombudsman, attempting to sideline one complaint of a criminal nature I made to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman cannot investigate suspected crimes.

    The table below from Dunning’s Capacity Report (Dec 2016) includes all the secret areas OPLA are involved in where they have no jurisdiction:

    OPLA, and indeed its boss, Peter Finnegan (Dail Clerk) have no remit in at least four areas of growth as listed above. OPLA’s remit is ostensibly confined to the tripartite functions of 1) Advices to the houses of the Oireachtas and its staff, 2) Defending the Houses of the Oireachtas in Court and 3) Help with drafting Private Members Bills (PMBs). Enhanced Protected Disclosures legislation and the whistleblowers who rely on it have been taken out with military precision.

    ‘A Whistleblower’s Motive’ by Matthew Butterly. Image: Daniele Idini.

    The Whistleblowing Industry

    I have raised the OPLA and the unlawful Ombudsman appointment with John McGuinness, Chairperson of the Oireachtas Finance Committee unsuccessfully. I have also made a complaint to the Relevant Section in the EU, responsible for the transposal of the EU Directive on Protected Disclosures into Irish law, backed by a number of other whistleblowers. The EU passed the buck back to the Irish courts. As if any whistleblower can afford to go to Court!

    Several whistleblowers (myself included) have appealed to mainstream media outlets to expose the OPLA in its unconstitutional reconfiguration since 2018 and its unlawful involvement in PDs. They have all refused to act.

    Transparency Ireland have become a quangoistic arm of state, which now fully funds the organisation. Dr Lauren Kierans, the Maynooth academic in the area of PDs who wrote the new Protected Disclosures Act for DPER has been informed that her act was sabotaged as outlined above. She passed the buck to Transparency Ireland and is now on maternity leave.

    The retaliation against and destruction of whistleblowers is all set to escalate as OPLA continues to expand. As Transparency Ireland expands too, and academic departments and units on whistleblowing mushroom in Maynooth and Galway Universities, whistleblowing has now become a lucrative industry, where everyone is well-remunerated bar the destroyed whistleblowers themselves – for whose welfare these organisations ostensibly exist.

    Whistleblower, Shane Corr (where OPLA also interfered) was suspended as a Principal Officer by Robert Watt in the Health Department. Watt was himself central to the creation and the funding of the OPLA since 2018 when he was SG in DPER until replaced by David Moloney in 2021. Corr was threatened by Watt with a criminal breach of the Official Secrets Act after OPLA deemed his submissions to the PAC were not covered by privilege.

    Whistleblower and very senior official, John Barrett, the Garda Head of HR according to a Village Magazine article some time ago, was subjected to tyrannous retaliation by Drew Harris for exposing the Templemore Garda slush funds scandal. He is awaiting a hearing in court. This is to name but two of an army of destroyed whistleblowers.

    In a deeply compromised, dysfunctional democracy, everyone will be rewarded bar whistleblowers. The Finance Committee is in a state of paralysis and the Minister who colluded all the way, Michael McGrath becomes an EU Commissioner in circumstances where he actively incapacitated the EU’s own Directive for the protection of whistleblowers.

    The irony of this cannot be overstated. What part the early announcement of his departure has to do with my rigorous challenged to the CEO of the PAS in recent days, Margaret McCabe, is anyone’s guess.

    After all, the vacancy for the EU Commissioner does not arise until October. Meanwhile, whistleblowers will continue to be condemned, vilified and relegated to the ranks of public pariah, while endless amounts of public money will be thrown at the industry and the army of persons who have colluded to destroy them. Foremost among these is OPLA and the Ombudsman. According to the Law Society Gazette in July 2018 OPLA’s Melissa English believes she’s worth it. Our democracy meanwhile, which can always be measured by the treatment of whistleblowers, was never more undermined.

  • OPLA: An Oireachtas within the Oireachtas

    Since my last article detailing the manner in which the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisor (OPLA) has been eroding Irish democracy, I have become acquainted with the Dunning Report (Capacity Review of the Office of the Parliamentary Legal Advisor (OPLA) of the Houses of the Oireachtas) of December 2016.

    This recommends a very modest expansion to the Office. Its main recommendations have, however, been ignored. The Office we are left with is an authoritarian, over-sized entity that inhibits the capacity of elected representatives to ask parliamentary questions, at a significant cost to the exchequer and in breach of the separation of powers.

    Moreover, there is little evidence, as we will see, that its ostensible purpose of assisting Dáil deputies – unaligned or from minority groupings – to pass private members bills is being fulfilled.

    The key recommendations of the Dunning Report are as follows:

    • That OPLA, which then had eight legal staff, should not be put on a statutory footing.
    • That OPLA should remain an independent entity.
    • That OPLA should be expanded incrementally, over a number of years
    • That this should be reviewed eighteen months after its modest expansion.
    • That it would go from the eight legal personnel in 2016 to a maximum of eleven, and that two additional administrative staff should also be assigned.
    • That the cost of this modest expansion should not exceed a quarter of a million euro per annum.

    The Dunning report allegedly emerged out of a sub-committee on Dáil Reform, chaired by Cheann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl in 2016. The sub-committee met for the last time in May 2016. Dunning worked on their recommendation. The key recommendation was for a modest expansion to OPLA to assist with Private Members Bills.

    However, by 2018 OPLA had already taken on an additional sixteen legal personnel – from eight to twenty-four, thirteen more than Dunning had recommended. The high cost of this was signed off on by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, under Robert Watt as Secretary General and Accounting Officer.

    OPLA appears to be the creation of the Dáil Clerk Peter Finnegan and the incumbent Cheann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl, who have completely departed from the Dunning recommendations.

    Remarkably, the required legislation received no scrutiny and there were no committee stages. It was signed into law by the President on December 27, 2018. Its effect is that the Oireachtas is now often limited to rubber-stamping bills.

    I have written to Seán Ó Fearghaíl several times since last November regarding my own inability to have the Dáil records corrected, where parliamentary questions have been undermined for over two years now. He has not replied.

    Constitutional Crisis

    It is no exaggeration to say we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis, and that the Cheann Comhairle, the Leas Cheann Comhairle and the Dáil Clerk are all involved.

    In its current configuration OPLA is an unconstitutional, legal hit squad, sabotaging the operation of the Oireachtas. It has no business involving itself in parliamentary questions or committees. Its role ought to be confined to giving legal advice to members drafting Private Members Bills.

    Having failed to conform to the Dunning recommendation, it should now be disbanded forthwith. Its chief officer Melissa English should not be working with and reporting to the Dáil Clerk, and nor according to Dunning should she have statutory powers.

    It seems that anyone now raising parliamentary questions (PQs) on any matter that senior civil servants wish to hush up are being undermined by the Cheann Comhairle, the Leas Cheann Comhairle and the Dáil Clerk, as well as OPLA.

    I previously (unsuccessfully) attempted to ascertain via PQs how many bogus doctors have been used across state agencies over the past three decades. This caused the legal heavy gang to fire off threats in an area over which they have no jurisdiction.

    Standing Orders were infringed in the replies to my PQs. I tried to have that infringement rectified by the Committee for Parliamentary Oversights and Privileges (CPPO). However, members of the Committee informed me that my submission was never circulated or heard.

    I even wrote to Micheál Martin as Taoiseach to make him aware of this. His response was to say that the Cheann Comhairle is a constitutionally independent office.

    Melissa English, the head of OPLA in an article for Eolas Magazine in March 2019 said the OPLA had been extended and put on a statutory footing following the Dunning report of December 2016.  The Dunning report allegedly followed on from recommendation of a “final report of the Sub-Committee on Dail Reform in May 2016.”

    The case for OPLA’s expansion was, according to Dunning, based on a huge increase in the number of Private Members Bills (PMBs) tabled by opposition TDs, especially independents. OPLA was conceived of as an entity that would assist all non-Government TDs and Senators in Leinster House to perform their jobs.

    The overall argument for the expansion of OPLA was to speed-up the through-put of such bills to legislative completeness, so that the legislative process would operate more smoothly. It was felt to be unfair that legislation brought in by Government had the resources of the office of the Attorney General and expert parliamentary drafters, while opposition TDs from small parties and groupings had no such legal expertise at their disposal.

    The focus of the Dunning report is on the role of OPLA in private members’ bills. He noted that there may be issues with opposition groupings and independents taking up the services of OPLA. For that reason Dunning recommended that it was vital that that OPLA remain independent. He also explicitly recommended that it should not be put on a statutory footing as previously stated.

    Even more to the point, he recommended that the operation of a modestly expanded OPLA be “implemented incrementally”, when referring to an OPLA with only three additional legal personnel – that is eleven in all.

    It begs the question: how did it go from eight to twenty-four personnel in two years, and why was it put on a statutory footing in defiance of Dunning’s recommendations? Its growth is certainly not commensurate with an increase in the number of private members bills. Instead, it has become a sinister entity designed to muzzle democracy.

    Dunning also recommended that it should be reviewed eighteen months after implementation, rather than being guillotined onto the statute books just before Christmas 2018, after virtually no Dáil debate, and certainly no pre-legislative scrutiny.

    Rapid Expansion

    Furthermore, Dunning recommended that the head of OPLA should be upgraded to Assistant Secretary rank and for the appointment of three legal experts in the rank of Principal Officer (PO) and a third in the rank of PO, who would be an expert legal drafter. Dunning also recommended two additional administrative staff at middle ranking civil service grades. 

    At the time of Dunning report there were already eight lawyers, two legal researchers and two further administrative staff. Thus, the report recommended a total of eleven lawyers and four administrative staff. Yet by 2018 OPLA had expanded, according to Melissa English in the Eolas article of March 2019, to twenty-four legal personnel creating a total staff of thirty-five, along with a further eleven administrative staff.

    Dunning also recommended that the head of an expanded OPLA (upgraded to Assistant Secretary rank and pay scale) should be filled through an open competition. This also didn’t happen. The murky legislation in the 2018 Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Amendment Act provided for the appointment to be made by the Dáil Clerk himself.

    Perhaps the most alarming aspect of all this is the manner in which legislation putting OPLA on a statutory footing was passed into law: the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Amendment Act 2018 does not seem to have gone through a committee stage, or pre-legislative scrutiny.

    A member of the sub-committee I spoke to claims it didn’t go through the Dáil or any pre-legislative scrutiny and suggested that this was done by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. However, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission is not vested with the authority to pass legislation.

    The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission was established in 2004 following the passing of the Houses by the Oireachtas Commission Act 2003. It made provision for a committee of eight members of the Dáil and Seanad, along with the Cheann Comhairle, and Cathaoirleach of the Seanad.

    Crucially, Dáil Clerk Peter Finnegan is also an ex-officio member of this Commission and, even more importantly, he heads the management board of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission – a civil service entity, comprising the Clerk of the Dáil, the Clerk of the Seanad, Martin Groves, and four more Assistant Secretaries, one of whom is, since 2018, Melissa English as head of OPLA, one external member and one Principal Officer.

    To add to the confusion, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission also has an audit committee, comprising three different TDs and four more senior civil servants. Prior to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission being established in 2004 the Houses of the Oireachtas was run and staffed in accordance with the Houses of the Oireachtas Act 1959 and the Civil Service Commissioners Act 1954.

    Cheann ComhairleSean Ó Fearghaíl

    Stages of the Bill

    Having by-passed the committee stage the bill was deemed to have passed a series of almost phantom stages in the Dáil and Seanad in late December 2018 at a point when the Dáil was rising for the Christmas recess, although the then Fine Gael junior minister in the Department of Expenditure and Public Reform did announce the Bill in the Dáil and Senator Gerard Craughwell backed it in the Seanad.

    It was deemed to have passed the first stage in the Dáil and Seanad on Monday 10 December 2018 yet, bizarrely, the Dáil record shows neither House sat that day!

    Nonetheless, all five stages of the bill were deemed to have been passed on Tuesday December 18, and the Dáil website supports this, despite the Dáil sittings record showing the bill was not even considered.

    The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins signed the Act into law on 27th December 2018. The entire process was a violation of the Constitution, as legislation appears to have been  slipped in via the channel of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, a body entirely dominated by a supporting management committee of civil servants under the auspices of the Dáil Clerk, Peter Finnegan. To be clear, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has no constitutional authority to pass legislation.

    Two personalities are a constant in this constitutional travesty: Seán Ó Fearghaíl as Cheann Comhairle and chair of the sub-committee leading to Dunning’s review, and Peter Finnegan, Dáil Clerk. Ó Fearghaíl chaired the sub-committee on Dail reform, which allegedly provided the justification for OPLA’s vast expansion on a statutory basis under the Dail Clerk, in defiance of the recommendations of the Dunning report.

    Ó Fearghaíl and Peter Finnegan are also members of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, of which Finnegan is the Manager, as well as being head of the management team of the Houses of the Oireachtas supporting the Commission, comprising five top civil servants.

    It would appear that the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission has un-constitutionally created an Oireachtas within the Oireachtas.

    Violation of Separation of Powers?

    Very grave questions arise from the use of OPLA as a legal heavy gang punching down unlawfully. It has regularly exceeded its remit since the passing of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Amendment Act 2018.

    Arguably, this amounts to a constitutional crisis. Mr Finnegan has been reported to SIPO and to the TLAC civil service Commissioners who have not acted. But then he’s on the SIPO Commission, which is another conflict of interest.

    Apart from the unscrupulous expansion of OPLA, well in excess of Dunning’s recommendations, the take-up of the OPLA services in Private Members Bills (PMBs), anticipated by Dunning, has not happened. Nor has there been any discernible increase in the passing of PMBs.

    A glance at the Houses of the Oireachtas annual reports reveals no expansion into service by OPLA in PMBs. In 2021 there were a total of 113 PMB, but OPLA only gave advice on 56 of these, and only provided drafting service to 36. None of the bills successfully passed.

    The statistics for OPLA’s work show that most of its “advices” are to the Houses of the Oireachtas service itself and of the 639 “advices” it provided in 2021, 493 were to the service itself and 143 were advice to committees.

    In addition, they are heavily involved in Protected Disclosures, FOI requests and Employment Law. None of this was envisaged by Dunning.

    So, how did a vastly bloated, OPLA pass into law in a manner contrary to the recommendations of the Dunning report? How and why was it put on a statutory footing under the Clerk of the Dáil in 2018, when Dunning recommended that it shouldn’t be put on a statutory footing?

    It seems as if OPLA has become an unconstitutional, authoritarian entity designed to snuff out an essential feature of Irish democracy. Under the pretence of a pressing need for legal assistance in PMBs, a legal monstrosity has been installed in the Houses of the Oireachtas.

    OPLA violates not just the Dunning report, but the Separation of Powers under the Constitution, as it has been integrated into the executive wing of Government under the Dáil Clerk, all at vast cost to the taxpayer.

  • OPLA Erodes Irish Democracy

    The Office on the Parliamentary Legal Advisor (OPLA) was placed on a statutory footing in 2018, by amendment to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Act 2003, without so much as a press release, let alone media coverage of an important development. This entity is delivering a hammer blow to Irish democracy.

    In the midst of the pandemic in 2021, Marc McSharry TD – an ardent supporter of whistleblowers – tabled a number of parliamentary questions (PQs) on my behalf. These mostly concerned the apparent widespread use of bogus medical doctors across state agencies.

    All of these questions were shot down, however, under Standing Order (SO) 45, which inaccurately claimed they weren’t questions of ‘fact of policy’.

    The final PQ was euphemistically ‘amended’, but was in reality an entirely new PQ, drafted so as effectively to give legislative approval to the practice of using bogus doctors, fraudently claiming to hold medical council registrations.

    These doctors are used, in particular, in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) and are paid a sum for each client they cut off disability payments. All doctors reviewing cases in the DEASP are obliged to be registered with the medical council.

    Signing Off

    The PQs raised on my behalf were signed off on by Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Catherine Connolly whom I implored not to put the replies on the Dáil record, as I explained it would be a violation of Standing Order 45 to alter a PQ without consent.

    However, Catherine Connolly doubled down, claiming PQs can be ‘amended’ under SO 45.

    Yet the provision of SO 45 states that PQs can only be amended in ‘consultation’ with the Deputy raising them, which did not occur.

    Despite being furnished with a copy of standing order 45, Catherine Connolly bizarrely wrote to me and Deputy McSharry that the replies were going on the Dáil record, and she was ‘not re-visiting’ the matter. This effectively gave Dáil blessing to serious malpractice.

    I was entitled to an appeal before the Committee for Parliamentary Oversight and Privileges (CPPO) but, before I could make a submission, I received an unsolicited letter from the Cheann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl erroneously claiming I had no right to an appeal to the CPPO.

    I then engaged the service of a solicitor (at my expense), and only after two solicitors’ letters was my right to a CPPO hearing established with the Cheann Comhairle, who wrote to say he had given my submission to the clerk of the CPPO.

    Matters did not end there. After this I encountered the sinister entity that is OPLA.

    Seán Ó Fearghaíl TD

    Case Closed

    I had requested that another committee member chair the CPPO for this case, as the usual chair Seán Ó Fearghaíl, and his deputy, Catherine Connolly, had questions to answer. My request was refused, however, by the Office on the Parliamentary Legal Advisor (OPLA).

    Then I sought to appear as a witness. This too was denied. Finally, I received a brief email from the Committee clerk, a middle-ranking civil servant, saying the case had been heard on April 6, 2022, and had found against me, and that the Cheann Comhairle had chaired it.

    I received no reply from the Committee clerk to further enquiries such as whether the requisite quorum of eight committee members were in attendance. I did, however, receive a high-handed reply from a ‘legal counsel’ in OPLA, conveying what I now know to be an inaccurate account of the hearing.

    Having checked with members of the Committee, it appears my case was never heard and, my submission was not circulated to the Committee members. This is a breach of Standing Order 118.

    OPLA circulated a number of further authoritarian letters defending the Cean Comhairle’s right to chair the meeting, while maintaining that there had been a hearing by the CPPO in the first place.

    On June 10, 2022, the deputy head of OPLA, Ramona Quinn wrote a letter to me citing ‘laws and conventions going back to 1923.’

    In response, I challenged Ms Quinn and OPLA as to what Dáil Standing Order allowed the unit to intrude on – and indeed unconstitutionally usurp – the work of any Committee of elected representatives of Dáil Eireann? To this I received no reply.

    I did, however, receive a number of further, intimidating, letter from OPLA, thereafter unsigned.

    In response, I put them on notice to the effect that this constituted harassment and pointed out that they were trespassing into the constitutionally sacrosanct domain of the Ceann Comhairle, and the Oireachtas. I asked the head of OPLA for the Dáil Standing Order allowing for it. To this I again received no reply.

    OPLA

    Further enquires reveal that the OPLA quango evolved from containing just one legal advisor, Melissa English, in 2007, to twenty-four legal experts in 2018!

    English had been a sole independent legal advisor in the Houses of the Oireachtas but, according to a March 2019 article in Eolas magazine, ‘under her stewardship it is now a statutory office comprising a multi-disciplinary team of barristers, solicitors, legislation drafters and specialist researchers.’

    The article goes on to quote English saying, ‘the OPLA unit had to be structured and resourced over the last 12 years.’

    Eolas magazine reveals further that OPLA emerged from ‘a report of a retired civil servant Dunning in December 2016’, and it led to a Dáil sub-Committee headed by the Cheann Comhairle for the establishment and vast expansion of OPLA, including the provision for the head of OPLA to be appointed a deputy Secretary General in the Houses of the Oireachtas.

    The function of OPLA is supposed to be tripartite: to give legal advice to Oireachtas members; to help draft legislation in Private Members Bills; and to defend the Houses of the Oireachtas in court challenges.

    However, given English and her unit are part of the Oireachtas, and as she is a civil servant reporting directly to the civil servant and Top-Level Appointments Committee (TLAC) appointee, Dáil Clerk, Peter Finnegan, how can she defend herself and her unit in court, as it is now an integral part of the Oireachtas?

    Furthermore, English flagged the ‘colliding rights of parliamentarians to absolute privilege in respect of their speeches in the Dail and the, sometimes competing rights of outside persons whose personal constitutional rights can be adversely affected by this speech’ as part of the justification for her bloated unit.

    I maintain that English and her legal heavy gang have copper-fastened gross medical malpractice implicit to the use of unqualified medical practitioners by State departments and agencies.

    So much for the constitutional rights of citizens, English appears to have seen no problem giving parliamentary blessing to a seriously problematic practice.

    Furthermore, English appears to have seen nothing irregular about government Departments and Oireachtas civil servants distorting PQs, or the Cheann Comhairle apparently misleading me in correspondence.

    The Leas Cheann Comhairle Catherine Connolly who signed the PQ responses ought to be aware that OPLA has exceeded its remit, violated the Oireachtas and conveyed falsehoods about a phantom hearing at the CPPO in April this year. I argue that she is deepening her original violation of SO 45, and failing to correct the records of the Dáil arising from the distortion of the PQ. She is also failing to correct the erroneous assertions of OPLA.

    Four Courts Quay.

    Violation of Separation of Powers

    I wrote to Melissa English on October 15, 2022 regarding the intrusions of OPLA into the workings of a Dáil Committee.

    English defines herself as ‘being central to the defence on behalf of parliament of the cornerstone of the constitutional separation of powers’, but she seems unaware that OPLA violates the constitutional separation of powers. As a civil servant under the Dáil Clerk, English is obliged to respond in ten working days to queries from the public.

    Yet, to date, I have received no response from her to these questions I raised.

    1. What is your defence of the violation by OPLA of Dail SOs and the Constitutional Separations of Powers in taking over the CPPO committee from its clerk designate and its elected members?
    2. Sinead Fitzpatrick, legal counsel, conveyed un-retracted inaccuracies in two formal letters to me and my solicitor on 20 April 2022 to the effect that the case was heard by the CPPO on 6 April 2021. It was not heard and, the submission was not even circulated in further violation of SO 118.
    3. Why am I still being harassed by unsolicited and unsigned communications from OPLA whom I have requested to remain outside of my dealings with elected members of a Dáil Committee – a constitutional process in which OPLA has no role or jurisdiction?
    4. Are the Cean Comhairle and the Leas Cean Comhairle being consulted and informed about these communications, and do they approve of the ongoing communications I am receiving from OPLA at your direction?

    I have separately put these questions to the Cheann Comhairle and the Leas Cheann Comhairle, similarly without reply.

    Constitutional Crisis

    I notified Taoiseach Micheál Martin in late 2021 to the effect that there is a constitutional crisis in the Oireachtas because of the ongoing conduct of the Cheann Comhairle and Leas Cean Comhairle. I also informed him that OPLA and the Dáil Clerk are violating the constitutionally sacrosanct realms of the Cheann Comhairle and the Oireachtas.

    Micheál Martin responded that the Cheann Comhairle’s office was independent. It begs the question: who exactly will deal with the constitutional impasse that has emerged in this case?

    It appears that OPLA is ensuring that in certain circumstances a PQ cannot be asked on behalf of a citizen. Nor can a citizen access a Dáil Committee to redress the injustice of a wrongful PQ.

    How, one wonders, did the Oireachtas ever function before the recent creation of OPLA and its band of twenty-four legal heavy hitters?

    The answer seems obvious. OPLA is designed to muzzle the Oireachtas. That is perhaps why no press release attended its creation on a statutory footing and its wide expansion in 2018.

    It is an authoritarian quango which has mushroomed from one legal advisor to twenty-four in the space of twelve years. Masquerading as a helpful entity, its real purpose is to snuff out a crucial function of our parliamentary democracy.

    A Legal Monster

    So how did the legislation creating OPLA slip through parliament in 2018 and, how much does it cost the taxpayer? Having spoken to a number of TDs, none seem to recall the 2018 legislation creating OPLA in its current guise passing through the Houses of the Oireachtas.

    Given OPLA’s total staff, including clerical and twenty-four legal officers amount to thirty-six, we may assume it costs at least €5 million per annum.

    The spend was signed off on by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform under Robert Watt as Secretary General and Accounting Officer. Perhaps this explains Robert Watt apparent contempt for Dáil Committees.

    Democratic accountability compels a total dismantling of OPLA in its present guise. One does not need to be a constitutional lawyer to see that it is glaringly unconstitutional.