BUSINESS OPINION:You cannot shrink an economy by 10 per cent and sustain a legal edifice at the same level

MR JUSTICE Peter Kelly has a fine populist touch. His occasional exasperated outbursts from the bench invariably chime with the public mood, be it over Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary’s economy with the truth, or some well-upholstered senior counsel who does not have his paperwork in order.

He truly is the people’s judge. Indeed, his candour is refreshing in comparison with the ways of a judiciary taking the separation-of- powers doctrine so seriously that it will not enter the public debate on any issue (unless of course the pensions of its members are at stake, but that’s another day’s work).

Last week found Mr Justice Kelly in top form, fulminating about the incredible delays over the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement’s investigation into Anglo Irish Bank.

After hearing that the investigation, which he had been told would finish at the end of last year, would now run until the end of this year, the judge once again became the tribune of a weary nation, asking whether the inquiry was “ever going to come to an end”. Counsel for the director did not appear to be in a position to give a categorical answer, but reassuringly told the court the director was doing all he could.

Sadly, on this particular occasion, we have to part company with Mr Justice Kelly and, with the greatest respect to his lordship ask whether he might be playing to the gallery just a teeny weeny bit?

The reason we have taken this treacherous – and might one add, painful, step – is that we would have thought someone who has spent a lifetime in the law in Ireland should know better than most why these things take so long and the central role of lawyers in it all.

Among the many throwaway comments made by Peter Nyberg, the Finnish moral philosopher cum central banker who investigated the Irish banking crisis, was that he could not believe the number of lawyers that got involved. It was the exception rather than the norm apparently for someone to deal directly with his commission, rather than through lawyers.

Likewise, no self-respecting Irish person, it seems, would dream of turning up for an interview with out at least one of our learned friends in tow.

His other comment was that if – as many wanted – he would have named names in his report, he suspected he would have been at work for another year. We would not want to put words in Nyberg’s mouth, but suspect that the two are related.

The sight of lawyers swarming around public inquiries is nothing new to us, of course, but Nyberg’s asides do underscore how counterproductive, if not downright dangerous, the whole thing has become.

It is dangerous because somewhere along the road, the concept of legal advice replaced the notion of personal responsibility and accountability.

It became a precept of Irish business that you could do pretty much anything as long as you had a legal opinion saying it was okay. Just think of the carry-on at Anglo Irish Bank around the Maple 10 transaction. All perfectly legal apparently, according to one of Dublin’s biggest law firms.

It was a wonderful self- sustaining cycle, because the first action of anyone who might sue you over some dodgy behaviour – but legal according to your lawyers – would be to get legal advice (sometimes from the same firm).

And so on it went. Surprisingly, little of this advice seemed to result in anyone going to court, never mind jail. Somehow, lawyers came to be seen as the arbiters of what was legal, rather than proponents of a particular – and invariably partisan – view. It suited them down to the ground and helped to wreck the place.

In the process we built a massive legal industry – charging London prices – that now has to be either dismantled or subsidised by a business community that has become addicted to expensive legal advice.

Logic would dictate that you cannot reduce the size of a banking system by half, shrink an economy by 10 per cent-plus and still have four or five of the largest second-tier law firms in Europe charging like rhinos out of their state-of-the-art office blocks.

No doubt the reckoning will come, but in the meantime the legal profession – like any good dealers – will do all it can to keep its clients dependent and the money coming in.