The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by the Seanad Committee on Members’ Interests and upheld an order quashing its 2010 finding against Ivor Callely over claims for travel and overnight allowances.
In a judgment delivered on 9 April 2014, Mr Justice Hardiman said the Committee could not rely on Article 15.10 of the Constitution to prevent the courts from considering Callely’s complaint that its process was unfair. The judgment addressed that preliminary challenge to the courts’ jurisdiction and the merits of the appeal. The Court held it had jurisdiction and dismissed the appeal, leaving the High Court’s order in place.
The Committee had found that Callely misrepresented his normal place of residence when claiming allowances, and that he acted intentionally and not in good faith. The complaints followed a newspaper report and were referred to the Committee for investigation under the Ethics in Public Office Act 1995, as amended.
The dispute concerned a house in Kilcrohane, Bantry, County Cork. In October 2008, the Oireachtas Members Services Office asked Callely to certify that the house was his “normal place of residence for the time being” and supplied a Department of Finance interpretation of that phrase. Callely replied that Kilcrohane was his normal place of residence under that interpretation.
After Callely began legal proceedings, the Committee acknowledged that his expenses claim fell within the scope of the Department’s interpretation and that, having regard to his evidence about its use, the Kilcrohane house met that interpretation. Hardiman J said those concessions were inconsistent with the Committee’s finding that Callely had misrepresented his normal place of residence. The Committee had not found that Kilcrohane was not his normal residence, he said, and could not defend the finding by relying on a different allegation that had not been put to Callely.
The judgment did not decide whether the Department of Finance interpretation was the correct legal definition. It held that the Committee’s finding could not stand in light of its later concessions and upheld the High Court’s order quashing the report and certain consequential decisions. The judgment also records that the High Court judgment under appeal was delivered on 14 January 2011.