The Oireachtas has the right to inform itself on matters relevant to its parliamentary functions and to conduct or authorise committees to conduct inquiries for that purpose, Mr Justice Murray said.
What was at issue was the extent of the powers of the Abbeylara subcommittee (ASC).
It could not be gainsaid that the ASC's findings could affect rights of citizens. Were the ASC to find gardaí or an individual garda had participated in an unlawful killing, this could only have a devastating impact on the reputation of those concerned. It was irrelevant to argue such a finding was not legally binding.
There was nothing in the Constitution prohibiting a committee conducting an inquiry into any matter it considered worth inquiring into. But if it acted so as to affect the rights of citizens, this must be under a governmental power conferred on it by the Constitution. The Constitution did not permit, let alone mandate, an unexpressed inherent power of the Oireachtas to conduct inquiries of such a nature.
The Constitution gave specific powers to the Oireachtas to adjudicate on the conduct of its own members. If the Constitution intended to confer far reaching power on the Oireachtas to make findings of serious wrongdoing against non-Oireachtas members, he believed it would have done so in an explicit manner.
While not saying a public representative was incapable of acting fairly or objectively, but there was the underlying fact they each had an ever-present interest in the political issues of the day. There was at least a real risk that the integrity or objectivity of parliamentary inquiries could be compromised by purely political considerations.