The Supreme Court has dismissed Angela Kerins’s appeal against the refusal of discovery in her damages action over the Public Accounts Committee’s examination of Rehab Group expenditure.
In a judgment delivered on 18 June 2024, Mr Justice Brian Murray said the proposed use of statements made by committee members would make those utterances the subject of litigation. The Court held that parliamentary privilege and related constitutional principles barred discovery to support the claim as pleaded.
The case is the second module of proceedings arising from the PAC’s 2014 hearings into Rehab Group expenditure. In the first module, the Supreme Court declared that the PAC acted unlawfully because its hearing was outside its terms of reference and departed significantly from the terms of the invitation to Ms Kerins, then Rehab’s chief executive. That earlier decision concerned the legality of the committee’s actions; the current appeal concerned discovery for a later damages claim.
Ms Kerins sought damages for alleged personal injury, reputational damage and loss connected with the hearings and the ending of her employment. Her pleadings described seven hours of questioning at a public hearing on 27 February 2014, which she said went beyond the notified subject matter and was pursued in a hostile manner. She also relied on statements made at a later PAC hearing on 10 April 2014, which she did not attend. She alleged that the questioning and public comments caused distress and a serious health collapse, and that she was hospitalised from 2 to 11 March 2014. These were claims advanced by Ms Kerins, not findings in this appeal.
The High Court had refused discovery, finding that it could not receive evidence about the parliamentary utterances at the heart of the claim and could not order disclosure for that purpose. It also relied on Dáil standing orders. Ms Kerins appealed that refusal.
The Supreme Court explained that parliamentary speech may, in some circumstances, be considered when a court determines whether a committee as a whole acted lawfully. But it said the exception did not apply here: the pleaded claim focused on the tone, manner, content and alleged motivation behind individual members’ statements, and sought damages for their effect on Ms Kerins. The Court concluded that this would amount to indirect or collateral amenability for parliamentary speech.
The appeal was dismissed. The Court said discovery should not be directed in support of the claim and that no amendment could change its essential character. This ruling addressed the appeal concerning discovery and the constitutional barrier to the pleaded use of the statements; it did not determine the alleged injuries or award damages.