The Supreme Court has dismissed Denis O’Brien’s appeal against a High Court decision that his challenge to the Dáil’s Committee on Procedure and Privileges (CPP) was non-justiciable. The Court held that reviewing the committee’s decision would amount to an indirect or collateral challenge to statements made by deputies in the Dáil, which the Constitution shields from court proceedings.
The case followed O’Brien’s unsuccessful request for an injunction in 2015 to prevent RTÉ from publishing confidential information about his personal banking arrangements with Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC). During Dáil debates in May and June that year, Deputies Murphy and Pearse Doherty made statements about his IBRC loans and the Siteserv transaction. The judgment records that O’Brien later conceded in the High Court proceedings that the injunction could no longer cover information disclosed in those statements. The High Court’s injunction had not been intended to restrain statements in the Oireachtas.
O’Brien complained to the CPP about the deputies’ statements. The committee concluded that Murphy had not abused parliamentary privilege and that Doherty’s statements did not breach the relevant standing order. O’Brien then challenged the committee’s handling of his complaints, arguing that its conclusions were unsupported and that his right to fair procedures had been breached.
The Supreme Court said the Dáil has a constitutional obligation to protect citizens’ rights in relation to matters occurring within the Houses. It characterised the CPP’s consideration of a citizen’s complaint about an alleged rights infringement as part of that constitutional function, with the committee enjoying the same privileges and immunities as the Dáil in carrying it out.
But the Court said that, in this case, a successful challenge could lead the CPP to reconsider whether the deputies’ statements were permissible and whether sanctions were appropriate. That would involve the courts indirectly in assessing protected parliamentary statements and could make a deputy answerable to a court in respect of words spoken in the House. The challenge was therefore non-justiciable.
The Court also considered whether an exceptional, “Callely type” route to court review might exist where the Oireachtas failed egregiously or persistently to protect citizens’ rights. It did not decide whether such an exception exists. It held that, even if it does, the circumstances of O’Brien’s case did not meet that threshold. The Court said the CPP might have erred in parts of its handling of the complaint, but that would fall far short of the required exceptional failure.
The appeal was dismissed. The judgment did not decide O’Brien’s separate challenge to the High Court costs order; it said that issue was not dealt with in this judgment.