Part One: The Making of Judges – Who They Are

The Appointments Process

Before 2023, judicial appointments in Ireland were a closed shop. The government appointed judges. That’s it. No public interviews. No published criteria. No way to know why one barrister got the nod and another didn’t. The system ran on networks, on who you knew, on which school you went to, which rugby club you played for, which chambers you’d been pupilled in.

The Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2023 was supposed to change that. A commission would now recommend candidates. Transparency. Accountability. A new dawn.

Don’t hold your breath.

The Act still requires the commission to have regard to “the need to ensure that the judiciary is representative of the population as a whole.” That’s a nice phrase. It doesn’t mean anything. Because the pool they’re fishing in hasn’t changed. It’s still the bar. It’s still the same schools. It’s still the same class.

The Social and Educational Background of the Bench

Walk into the Four Courts. Look at the faces. Listen to the accents.

You won’t hear many working-class Dublin accents. You won’t hear a Northside voice. You won’t hear the Liberties, the housing estates of Cork or Limerick or Galway. You’ll hear the accents of south Dublin, of the suburbs, of the schools that cost money. You’ll hear the accents of people whose parents went to university, whose grandparents were professionals, who’ve never had to wonder where the next month’s rent was coming from.

I was in my late 30s the first time I set foot inside Trinity. That was job related. There were no school tours. No visits from them to encourage us. As far as we were concerned, it was private property. A group of working-class teenagers showing up would most likely invite the attention of the Gardaí.

The same is true of the courts. They don’t feel like they belong to you. They don’t feel like they belong to me. They feel like they belong to them. Because they do.

I once witnessed a case in the District Court. A well-spoken chartered accountant was brought up on a minor traffic offence. The normal procedure would have been a few minutes to read the charge, then a summary rubber-stamping. Instead, the judge entered into questioning. Where had the accused been educated? Why wasn’t he wearing his college tie so he could be identified? He was berated for about two minutes. Then the charge was dismissed.

The same judge, faced with a defendant from Tallaght with no solicitor, no suit, no tie, would have processed them in thirty seconds.

There are clearly different classes of people in Ireland. The evidence is everywhere.

The Dominance of the Barristerial Profession

Almost every judge appointed in Ireland comes from the bar. They’ve spent their careers as barristers. They’ve been socialised into a profession that prizes certainty, hierarchy, deference. They’ve learned to speak in a certain way, to dress in a certain way, to think in a certain way.

The bar is a guild. I wrote about this in Chapter 5. The guilds produce people who think alike, who know each other, who have a shared understanding of how the world works. That shared understanding includes the assumption that property rights are paramount, that the banks are to be facilitated, that the lay litigant is an inconvenience to be processed as quickly as possible.

When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re a barrister, every problem looks like a legal problem that can be solved by applying the rules. The rules that you learned. The rules that were written by people like you. The rules that protect people like you.

The Filtering Effect of the Guilds

The guilds start filtering early. They filter by school. They filter by university. They filter by which chambers you can get into. They filter by whether you can afford to do a few years of unpaid pupillage. They filter by whether you have the right accent, the right connections, the right parents.

By the time someone makes it onto the bench, they’ve been filtered a dozen times. The people who don’t fit—the working-class kids, the ones with the wrong accent, the ones who ask the wrong questions—have long since been screened out.

The result is a judiciary that looks nothing like the country it serves. A judiciary that has never had to worry about where their next mortgage payment was coming from. A judiciary that has never been cowed in a courtroom, trying to explain something they don’t fully understand, knowing that the whole room wants them to just shut up and take it.

A judiciary that cannot imagine what that feels like.

A High Court order obtained by justice minister Helen McEntee requires communications service providers to retain certain data — including user, traffic and location data — for a period of 12 months for the purpose of safeguarding the security of the State.

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Part Two: The Culture of the Bench – How They Think

The Assumption That Property Rights Are Paramount

The Irish Constitution protects property rights. Article 43 says so. But the way the courts have interpreted that article has created a hierarchy of rights. Property rights sit at the top. Everything else—the right to a home, the right to a fair hearing, the right to family life—sits somewhere below.

When a bank wants to repossess a house, the court doesn’t ask: what will happen to the family who live there? It asks: has the bank proved its case? And because the bank’s case is usually a loan agreement and a default, the answer is almost always yes.

The court doesn’t ask: was this loan sold to a vulture fund at a discount? The court doesn’t ask: did the bank cause the default by its own actions? The court doesn’t ask: is it proportionate to evict a family for a debt that the bank itself created?

The court asks one question: did the bank lend the money? Did they not get it back? Then give us the house.

The Tolerance of “Sloppiness” from Institutional Litigants

In 2012, Ms Justice O’Malley delivered a judgment in a case involving the Master of the High Court. She made a comment that has stayed with me. She was talking about bank affidavits. She said “sloppiness, which is an all-too frequent phenomenon.”

Think about that. The judge herself is admitting that the banks, the biggest institutions in the State, regularly file sloppy affidavits. Affidavits that are hearsay. Affidavits that don’t verify the cause of action. Affidavits that are, in the Master’s words, “reconstructed second-hand from a perusal of the file.”

And what happens to these sloppy affidavits? Nothing. The court accepts them. The court processes them. The court gives judgment based on them.

If a lay litigant files a sloppy affidavit, they’re finished. The judge will tell them it’s not in order. The case will be struck out. The costs will be awarded against them.

But for the banks? Sloppiness is tolerated. It’s all-too frequent. It’s just the way things are.

The Impatience with Lay Litigants

The late Master of the High Court, Edmond Honohan, described it better than anyone. He wrote about the Monday morning list. One judge. A hundred cases. The bank’s solicitor stands up, rattles through the file, asks for the order. The lay litigant stands with a folder of papers they don’t understand.

He described defendants “cowed to keep their arguments short” because they can feel the judge’s impatience. He noted the cruel irony: your chance of getting leave to defend might depend on how long your argument takes. If you have a barrister who knows how to spin it out, your chances improve. If you’re alone, if you’re stumbling—“That may be his undoing.”

The system is not designed to be fair to people without lawyers. It’s designed to process them.

The Monday Morning List Mentality

The Monday morning list is a machine. It’s designed to process cases efficiently. The judges are under pressure to clear lists. The Courts Service has productivity targets. The banks want their money. Everyone wants the cases to move.

The one thing no one wants is for the lay litigant to take up time. Because taking up time slows the machine. And slowing the machine is inefficient. And inefficiency is the enemy.

Honohan said it outright: “This is not a price worth paying just to achieve good productivity figures for the Courts Service.”

He was saying that fairness matters more than speed. That justice is not a factory. That the right to a fair hearing cannot be sacrificed on the altar of efficiency.

The system didn’t agree. And the system removed him.

The Belief That Efficiency Is Justice

This is the core assumption. The courts believe that efficiency is justice. That if they process cases quickly, they’re doing their job. That if the lists clear, the system works.

But efficiency is not justice. Justice is taking the time to hear people. Justice is understanding the context. Justice is asking: what will happen to this family? Not just: did the bank lend the money?

When efficiency becomes the goal, the people who suffer are the ones who can’t afford lawyers. The ones who don’t know how to speak the language. The ones who don’t have the resources to fight.

The banks have lawyers. The banks can afford to be sloppy. The banks can afford to wait.

The lay litigant cannot.

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Part Three: The Honohan Case – The Truth-Teller Silenced

The Warning

Edmond Honohan was the Master of the High Court. It’s an ancient office. The Master deals with the procedural stuff—the paperwork, the administration, the grinding machinery that keeps the courts moving. He’d been doing it for years. He knew the system from the inside.

On 16 November 2011, he issued his decision in AIB v Collins. It was a repossession case. The bank wanted summary judgment. The defendant was a lay litigant, no lawyer, trying to argue his corner against one of the biggest corporations in the State.

Honohan could have just granted the order. That’s what usually happened. That’s what the banks expected. That’s what the system was designed to produce.

Instead, he wrote a judgment that blew the roof off the whole operation.

On “Leave to Defend”

He called the phrase “leave to defend”—the very language the courts use when a citizen asks to argue their case—“unconsciously disrespectful and patronising.”

You’re not entitled to defend your home. You have to beg for leave. You have to prove you’re worthy of being heard. The bank doesn’t have to prove its case; you have to prove you have a defence. The burden is flipped. The citizen is guilty until proven innocent.

I realise you may think I over using Honohan but it was from reading his rulings, from comments from Judges of the high court about him – that I gained a lot of my insight into the legal system.

For example I know that the Cretins who sit in District summary are not acting in the capacity of Judges, their role is quasi-Judicial, rubber stamping processors. I know without your stated consent they are charging you without a “Fair-Hearing” in contravention of Article 6 of the EU human rights convention. It’s a Summary Court Ipso Facto!

I know a lot because various visits to the courts (I am not a criminal – I have no criminal convictions) have inspired me to read, to dig and to create my own archives. Every time they make a ruling I pay attention, every time they open the emergency exit for one of their own – I notice.

I’m not the first and wont be the last.

The Courts Service collects and publishes clearance rates, judge sitting days, and aggregate possession orders—but not a single public table shows how often self-represented defendants succeed, fail, or even survive past the first hearing in summary debt or repossession proceedings.
In the data age this is not an oversight; it is a decision. The same decision-making logic that quietly removed Master Honohan’s most critical rulings from easy public access continues to shape what the public is—and is not—allowed to know about the day-to-day operation of summary justice.

On the Monday Morning Assembly Line
Hunuhan described defendants “cowed to keep their arguments short” because they can feel the judge’s impatience, can hear the solicitor’s sigh, can sense that the whole room wants them to just shut up and take it.

He noted the cruel irony: your chance of getting leave to defend might depend on how long your argument takes. If you have a barrister who knows how to spin it out, your chances improve. If you’re alone, if you’re stumbling—“That may be his undoing.”

On the Right to a Fair Hearing:

“A motion for summary judgment is, in reality, a ‘trial’ for the purposes of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”

Article 6 guarantees the right to a fair hearing. Honohan was saying, in plain language, that the summary judgment procedure was a trial—a trial that could end with you losing your home—but it was being processed as if it were a minor administrative application. No proper evidence. No cross-examination. No time. No fairness.

On the Price of Productivity

And then he delivered the verdict that sealed his fate:

“This is not a price worth paying just to achieve good productivity figures for the Courts Service.”

He said it outright. The courts were processing people’s homes like items on a factory line. They were prioritising speed over justice. They were clearing lists instead of hearing cases. And the people paying the price were the ones who could least afford it.

The Farrell Case

In 2012, Honohan was still in office. He issued another judgment that showed he meant every word he’d said. This was ACC v Heffernan.

The case was about a summary summons—the fast-track procedure—and whether it should be struck out. Honohan laid out the standards that the banks and their solicitors were supposed to meet.

He wrote:

“A plaintiff has no legal or Constitutional right to an accelerated procedure just because the claim is liquidated. He has the same rights as the defendant, namely, due process in the timeframe envisaged by Article 6 of the Convention.”

He explained what the “no defence” averment—the solicitor’s certification that the defendant has no defence—actually means:

“The existence of a defence is not a matter on which a lay person can express an expert opinion. Instead, he should confirm having been advised as to the absence of a defence, as a matter of law, and should ideally identify the source of the legal opinion which he is happy to repeat as his ‘belief’.”

He described what happens when a bank’s affidavit is not what it seems:

“Sometimes the plaintiff’s own affidavits give the game away. This case is a case in point. Having sworn what might be described as a standard affidavit in such cases, and having included the ‘no defence’ belief averment, the first deponent on the plaintiff’s side takes to her heels on receiving the defendant’s replying affidavit. Was her evidence ever reliable? Or was it all inadmissible hearsay? Where is she now, this deponent who once knew all about the case? Gone, replaced by three other bank officials…”

And he concluded:

“I am striking out the Summary Summons in this case. The plaintiff can always start again with a Plenary Summons.”

This was Honohan doing his job. Properly. Insisting on the standards that the Rules of the Superior Courts required. Calling out banks for submitting hearsay dressed up as evidence. Making it clear that the fast-track procedure was not a right, but a privilege that had to be earned.

The System Strikes Back

Then came the case that broke him. AIB v Honohan [2015].

The banks had had enough. They sought an injunction against Honohan himself. They wanted to stop him from referring their affidavits to the Director of Public Prosecutions for suspected perjury.

Honohan had done exactly what any citizen is supposed to do when they see a crime. He saw affidavits that he believed contained perjury. He said: this should be investigated. That’s what the law says. That’s what the DPP is for.

The banks responded with a judicial review. They asked Ms Justice O’Malley to stop him.

Honohan defended himself. He said:

“The respondent takes the position that in deciding to send the papers to the Director of Public Prosecutions he was acting as a private citizen and is in that context not amenable to judicial review. It is also pleaded that the public has a right to expect every public official to report suspected crime.”

He went further. He said the banks were trying to silence him and leave him unable to sue for defamation. He wrote:

“The bank is seeking to engineer a general defamation of the Master, under cover of absolute privilege, leaving the Master with no remedy in defamation.”

Think about that. The banks were using court proceedings to smear him. And because everything said in court is absolutely privileged, he couldn’t sue them for it. It was a trap. A perfect, legal trap.

Ms Justice O’Malley delivered her judgment on 20 January 2012. She found that Honohan had no power to refer the papers to the DPP. She dismissed his concerns. She noted the “sloppiness” of bank affidavits—but she didn’t do anything about it. She made clear that the Master was not to step outside his Quasi-Judicial role – a learning opportunity for myself and others.

The Aftermath

Within months, Honohan’s cases were removed. The functions of the Master’s office were stripped back. He was isolated, marginalised, pushed towards the exit. The system didn’t engage with his arguments—it just made him go away.

This is the classic neo-colonial move. When someone from inside the apparatus speaks truth, you don’t debate them. You don’t answer their points. You just make them disappear. You redefine their role, remove their platform, wait for them to retire. And then you carry on exactly as before.

Honohan’s treatment is the proof that his warning was accurate. If the courts had clean hands, if the system was fair—why silence him? Why not engage? Why not fix the problems he’d identified?

Because the problems weren’t bugs. They were features. The system was working exactly as intended. Honohan just had the temerity to point it out.

Part Four: The Protected – Judges and Others Who Evaded Accountability

The Framework

The system protects its own. It has a thousand ways to do it.

The DPP filters prosecutions. They decide what cases to bring. If the accused is one of their own, the bar is set higher. The evidence has to be overwhelming. The case has to be watertight. Any procedural irregularity becomes fatal.

The courts apply procedural technicalities. If the warrant has the wrong date, the case is thrown out. If the statement was taken without a solicitor present, the evidence is excluded. If the delay was too long, the prosecution is stayed.

These are all legitimate principles. They protect the rights of accused people. But they’re applied differently depending on who’s standing in the dock.

If you’re a working-class man from Ballymun, the procedural technicalities will be applied against you. Your statement will be admitted. Your delay will be ignored. The warrant will be deemed good enough.

If you’re a judge, a garda, a solicitor, a banker—the technicalities will be applied for you. The slightest deviation will be fatal. The prosecution will be stayed. The record will be cleaned.

This is not a conspiracy. It’s a culture. It’s the way the system was built.

CASE ONE: The Stalker Judge

Former Circuit Court judge Gerard O’Brien was accused of pursuing a woman for a sexual relationship. He allegedly sent her “a very significant number of letters, cards and gifts” over a two-year period. He visited her home uninvited. He followed her.

She complained to the Gardaí. No prosecution.

She complained to the Judicial Council. The process “did not progress.”

She is now suing him for damages for harassment and breach of her constitutional rights. He is defending the case, denying the claims. His legal costs are being paid—how, we don’t know. Hers are coming out of her own pocket.

The system absorbed her complaints. It exhausted her. It offered her multiple channels, none of which led to accountability. The judge retired with his pension intact. His name is not in any criminal register. The record is clean.

This case shows how the system absorbs complaints, exhausts complainants, and eventually moves on. No accountability. No public record. No consequence.

CASE TWO: The “Pedo Judge”

This one is harder to write. Not because I don’t have the details—I did, once. I saved them. I know they were there. But now they’re gone. I’m sure many of you will remember the case

A judge was accused of serious sexual offences involving images of children. There was a warrant. The warrant had the wrong date. The case was thrown out. The DPP decided not to prosecute. And then the media stories disappeared.

They were online. Then they weren’t. When I went back to find them, they were gone. I don’t know who asked for them to be removed. I don’t know what pressure was applied. But I know that the only evidence of the allegations now is the memory of those who saw them before they vanished.

No prosecution → no court record. No court record → the only evidence is media. Media can be persuaded to remove the stories. Result: the public record contains nothing. The judge’s name is not in any official database. The allegations are not searchable.

This is how the record is cleaned. Not by burning documents, but by letting the official record decay, by privileging commercial access over public access, by making the citizen’s search fruitless. The absence you experience is not a failure of your research. It’s the system’s success.

CASE THREE: The Limerick Gardaí

On 19 March 2026—yesterday, as I write this—the Irish Examiner reported that charges had been dropped against three Limerick gardaí who had been suspended for six years for allegedly fixing traffic tickets.

Six years.

Garda Peter O’Donnell, Garda Paul Baynham, Garda Niall Deegan—suspended since November 2020. Their careers destroyed. Their families traumatised. Their reputations shredded. They had been told the evidence against them was strong. They faced dismissal.

Now the DPP has dropped the charges. No explanation. No accountability. The investigation that consumed six years of their lives produced nothing.

Four other gardaí and a retired superintendent were acquitted in January on similar charges. The investigation into them also produced nothing.

Labour TD Alan Kelly has called for an inquiry. Fianna Fáil’s Cathal Crowe says the Garda Commissioner should apologise. But an inquiry into what? The DPP’s decision is unreviewable. The investigation is over. The record will be cleaned. The politicians will move on.

The three gardaí will have their suspensions lifted. They’ll go back to work, if they still want to. But they won’t get those six years back. And the system that took them will face no consequences.

The Budapest Principle

In 2008, a legal researcher in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Helen Whately, wrote a paper for a conference in Budapest. It was a straightforward account of Irish law. It said this:

“In summary, the crucial social function provided by the DPP and the Gardaí has made the Irish Courts reluctant to impose any civil liability on them; fearing that such an imposition would hamper the effective operation of the criminal justice system. There may be extreme cases where misconduct makes it imperative that a civil remedy be afforded such as the McIntyre or Shortt or McBrearty cases. However, the courts are likely to avoid any broad statements of duty; limiting such actions to cases with clear evidence of malicious motives.”

This is the DPP, in its own words, admitting that it is functionally immune from accountability. No duty of care is owed to victims. No duty of care is owed to the accused. The courts will protect the prosecutorial function because to do otherwise would “hamper the effective operation of the criminal justice system.”

The Budapest principle in action: the system protects itself, and the rest of us can go hang.

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Part Five: The Exceptions – Judges Who Tried

There are a few. Not many. But a few.

Mr Justice Barrett in ESB Mortgage Finance v Ryan (2020)

Mr Justice Barrett asked whether the summary procedure was “fit for purpose.” He criticised defendants forced to go unrepresented. He proposed reforms he knew were “unlikely to be forthcoming.”

He spoke. Nothing changed.

The Court of Appeal in Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank v O’Malley (2019)

The Court of Appeal demanded a “higher standard” from banks. They admitted that for years, judgments had been obtained without proper proof. They said it couldn’t continue.

It continued.

Master Honohan

He is the exception that proves the rule. He spoke. He was silenced. His judgments are still there—some of them—but his role was stripped, his functions removed, his career ended. The message to every other court official was clear: this is what happens if you step out of line.

Why They’re Tolerated

These judges are tolerated because they’re exceptions. They’re not threats. Their judgments are praised and ignored. The machine keeps running. The banks keep filing sloppy affidavits. The Monday morning list keeps clearing.

An exception proves the rule. One judge speaks out, a hundred stay silent. The system absorbs the criticism, files it away, and carries on exactly as before.

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Part Six: How the Record Is Cleaned

The Disappearing Judgment

I wanted to find AIB v Honohan [2015]. The judgment where Ms Justice O’Malley ruled against the Master. The judgment that sealed his fate.

I went to the Courts Service website. The official portal. The place where a citizen should be able to find any judgment delivered in the High Court.

It wasn’t there.

I searched. I tried different terms. I looked for the citation. Nothing.

The judgment exists. BAILII has it. vLex has it. Commercial databases have it. But the official record, the one maintained by the Courts Service, the one a citizen can access without a subscription—does not contain it.

This is how the record is cleaned. Not by burning documents. By making the official record incomplete. By privileging commercial access over public access. By making the citizen’s search fruitless.

If you don’t know about BAILII. If you don’t have a vLex subscription. If you trust the Courts Service website to be complete—you will never find this judgment.

The Disappearing Media Story

The “Pedo Judge” stories were online. Then they weren’t. I don’t know who asked for them to be removed. I don’t know what pressure was applied. But I know that they’re gone.

The judge was never prosecuted. Without a prosecution, there’s no court record. Without a court record, the only evidence is media. And if the media can be persuaded to remove the stories—then there is no evidence. The record is clean.

The Sealed Record

The Commission of Investigation into the Mother and Baby Homes produced a report. Five volumes. 3,000 pages. It sat on a shelf for years before it was published. And when it was finally published, the government had been lobbied to redact the names of those who had made confidential submissions.

The facts are there. The names are gone. The victims are silenced. The record is cleaned.

This is how the system works. Not through dramatic cover-ups. Through quiet, bureaucratic processes. Through rules about confidentiality. Through decisions about what to publish and what to withhold. Through the slow decay of official databases. Through the removal of inconvenient stories from the internet.

The record resists cleaning—but only if we keep it. Only if we save the judgments, the articles, the stories. Only if we refuse to let them disappear.

That’s why this archive exists. That’s why I’m writing this.

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Part Seven: Connecting to the Thesis – The Judiciary in the Neo-Colonial State

The Guilds Produce Them

I wrote about the guilds in Chapter 5. The Law Society. The Bar Council. The King’s Inns. These are not modern institutions. They’re Victorian, some of them older. They were built to regulate a profession that served the British Empire. They have not changed.

They produce barristers who think a certain way. They produce solicitors who think a certain way. They produce judges who think a certain way. The way they think is that the system works, that the rules are fair, that the procedures protect everyone equally.

They have never been on the other side of the bar. They have never been the defendant in a summary judgment application. They have never watched their home being repossessed. They have never been cowed into silence by a judge’s impatience.

They cannot imagine what it feels like. So they cannot design a system that protects against it.

The Tribunals Protect the System

I wrote about tribunals in Chapter 7. The State sets them up when a scandal threatens. It gives them terms of reference so narrow that the uncomfortable questions are excluded by definition. It lets them produce reports that are damning in their specifics but leave the system untouched.

The Morris Tribunal exposed Garda corruption in Donegal. It produced a damning report. It cost millions. It led to settlements. It did not change the culture of An Garda Síochána.

The Banking Inquiry examined the crash. It heard emotional testimony. It produced weighty reports. It named no one for prosecution. It led to no reforms. It allowed the State to point at “systemic factors” while the bankers kept their bonuses and the politicians kept their pensions.

The IBRC Commission spent seven years investigating a handful of transactions. It cost millions. It produced a 1,500-page report. It left 37 transactions unexamined. The big fish swam free.

This is what tribunals are for. Not to find truth. To contain it. To silo it. To produce a report that can be filed away, and then to move on.

The Courts Process the Harvest

I wrote about the harvest in Chapter 9. Between April and September 2013—just six months—25,910 borrowers experienced “loss of ownership.” That’s the banks’ own language. It means they surrendered their homes, agreed to a voluntary sale, or faced legal proceedings for repossession.

The courts processed every one of those cases. The Monday morning list. The summary judgment. The cowed defendants. The judges who knew what was coming and didn’t ask the questions.

By the end of 2016, over 7,500 homes and apartments had been repossessed since 2010. That’s just the completed repossessions. By October 2014, legal proceedings had been initiated in 31,170 cases.

The vulture funds arrived. By late 2016, “non-bank entities” controlled 45,638 mortgages in Ireland, with almost 15,000 of those held by unregulated loan owners. The debts were sold, parcelled up, traded like commodities. The same summary procedure, the same Monday morning lists, the same cowed defendants—now arguing against funds that had bought their debt at a discount, profiting from Irish distress.

And the courts? The courts facilitated every step.

The Judiciary Presides Over All of It

The judges sit at the top of this system. They’re the ones who approve the summary judgments. They’re the ones who dismiss the applications for leave to defend. They’re the ones who say “the bank has made out its case” while the defendant stands there with a folder of papers they don’t understand.

They’re not corrupt. They’re not evil. They’re doing what they’ve been trained to do. They’re applying the rules. They’re clearing the lists. They’re being efficient.

And in doing so, they’re presiding over a system that takes people’s homes, that destroys families, that enriches the legal profession, that protects the banks and the vulture funds, that insulates the State from accountability.

They are the final piece of the machine. The robes cover it all.

Ryan v AG and the Rights That Weren’t

There’s a case you need to know about. Ryan v Attorney General [1965]. It’s the case that gave us unenumerated rights—the doctrine that the Constitution protects rights that aren’t written down. Gladys Ryan was a woman who’d had a stillbirth. She was concerned about fluoridation of the water supply. She argued that forced fluoridation violated her right to bodily integrity.

The Supreme Court agreed that there was a right to bodily integrity. It wasn’t written in the Constitution. But the judges found it there anyway.

And then they said that right could be outweighed by the public interest. The State could fluoridate the water anyway.

Rights acknowledged, then balanced away.

That’s the pattern. The citizen has a right. The State acknowledges it. And then the State says: but there are other considerations. The common good. The public interest. The need for efficiency. And the right is balanced away.

Honohan invoked Article 6 of the European Convention. The right to a fair hearing. The courts acknowledged it. And then they said: but the Master has no power. His concerns are irrational. The procedure is what it is. And the right was balanced away.

The judge accused of stalking had his day in court. The woman who complained was exhausted. The process “did not progress.” Her right to bodily integrity, her right to privacy, her right to be free from harassment—acknowledged, then balanced away.

The “Pedo Judge” was never prosecuted. The warrant had the wrong date. The DPP decided not to proceed. The media stories disappeared. The rights of the children who were allegedly abused—acknowledged, then balanced away.

The three Limerick gardaí were suspended for six years. Their careers destroyed. Their families traumatised. The DPP dropped the charges. No explanation. No accountability. Their right to a good name, their right to livelihood, their right to due process—acknowledged, then balanced away.

This is the doctrine of “no rights are absolute.” It’s the escape hatch. It’s what the courts use when they don’t want to grant a remedy. It’s what the State uses when it doesn’t want to be held accountable.

Rights are acknowledged. And then they’re outweighed. The citizen is told: you’re right, but you’re not entitled to anything.

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Conclusion: Who Judges the Judges?

The question this chapter leaves hanging is the question that no one in power wants to answer: if the judiciary won’t hold itself accountable, and the political system won’t hold them accountable, and the public can’t hold them accountable—who will?

The answer, for now, is no one.

The robes protect the wearer. The wearer protects the system. The system protects itself. And the citizen? The citizen stands with a folder of papers they don’t understand, trying to explain why their family shouldn’t be put out on the street, feeling the judge’s impatience, hearing the solicitor’s sigh, sensing that the whole room wants them to just shut up and take it.

The citizen is processed. The list clears. The machine moves on.

But the driver remembers.

I remember the three civil servants in the back of my car, pinstripe suits, satchels and briefcases, with the demeanour of school children, already having debunked the narrative that the government would spend years selling. I remember my knuckles white, my blood boiling, wanting to knock the bollox out of the three of them. I remember the red mist lifting. I remember them going through the gates, never having even acknowledged me, no idea they were so close to getting it that day.

That was 2008. The crash was coming. The bailout was planned. The harvest was coming. The Master would speak. The system would silence him. The banks would take the homes. The lawyers would take their cut. The vulture funds would buy the debt. The politicians would move on. The record would be cleaned.

And it’s about to happen again. On fucking steroids.

The next crisis is coming. The housing emergency. The cost-of-living catastrophe. The refugees. The inflation. The interest rates. The whole fucking thing, all at once, bearing down on a state that learned nothing from the last crisis except how to manage the narrative.

The same players are still there. The same civil service, with the same culture, the same assumptions, the same contempt for the people they’re supposed to serve. The same legal profession, ready to take its cut. The same political class, desperate to avoid accountability. The same banks, bailed out and back in business. The same vulture funds, circling.

And the same toolbox, waiting to be opened.

When the next crisis hits—and it will hit, soon, hard—they’ll do what they always do. They’ll define the problem narrowly, so the uncomfortable questions are excluded from the start. They’ll construct a narrative that makes their decisions look inevitable, heroic, unavoidable. They’ll insulate the connected, ensuring no one with power or money faces consequences. They’ll harvest the assets of the ordinary people who can’t defend themselves. And they’ll silence anyone who speaks out.

The homes will be repossessed again. The debts will be sold again. The legal profession will take its cut again. And the public will be told, again, that there was no choice. That their hand was forced. That they saved the country from certain doom.

And people will believe it. Again. Because the narrative will be everywhere, and the evidence will be buried in transcripts and submissions that no one reads, and the drivers who overhear conversations will be dismissed as bitter and unreliable.

The only question is whether you’ll listen. Whether you’ll recognize the toolbox when it’s opened again. Whether you’ll see through the narratives, question the definitions, challenge the insulation, resist the harvest.

Or whether you’ll let it happen again. On fucking steroids.

I know what I saw. I know what I heard. I know what’s coming.

The only question is: what are you going to do about it?