Sir, - I wish to refer to the report of an interview with Mr Harry Whelehan SC, the former Attorney General, which appeared in your issue of October 31st. In the course of this he was asked to comment on the judgment given by me in the High Court, in what has come to be known as the Cabinet Confidentiality case.
Specifically, he was asked about the passage in my judgments in which Ii referred to the possibility of a corrupt government abusing its powers for the advantage of its own members. I felt that it was highly important that, in the public interest, a full investigation should be possible, and should take place in such circumstances and that there was nothing in our Constitution which could be invoked to prevent it.
Mid Whelehan rejected the suggestion that an Irish government could fall from grace in such manner as being "so far-fetched as to be unrealistic". I invite your readers to reach their own conclusion as to which of us - Mr Whelehan or myself - is being "so far-fetched as to be unrealistic".
We are passing through a period when - according to my interpretation of newspaper reports - the Governments of France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Japan have all been swept from power, brought down in each case by allegations of corruption, and involving persons at the very highest seat of power. Even the President of the United States may be investigated; can be compelled to make full disclosure, and can - and has been - removed from office.
If a member of Government finds that his Cabinet colleagues are embarking on a thoroughly dishonourable course of conduct, the doctrine of collective responsibility requires that he should go along with it, or resign from Government. if he takes the honourable course and resigns, then it would appear, under the interpretation put on the Constitution by Mr Whelehan as Attorney General, and by the Supreme Court in deciding the case, that the Minister who has resigned would be precluded from disclosing to the public his reasons for doing so.
I am quite convinced that this was never intended by the framers, of the Constitution, and that to interpret it in this manner has done a grave disservice to the public interest. - Yours, etc,
Kilternan, Co Dublin.