19 / 196
wholly or partly financed through grants or loans from
a Government Minister.
The Finance Minister may designate the bodies which
the Council can bring within the scope of its operation.
The rules for the Council provide against a Deputy,
Senator, Dáil or Seanad nominee or full-time member
of the public service being chairman. The Council will
present to the Minister each year a report on the organ-
isation and personnel practices in the public service.
The Irish Independent
(3rd April 1971)
RECENT CONSTITUTIONAL CASES
COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS ACT, 1970,
HELD CONSTITUTIONAL
The Divisional Court of the High Court, Dublin, which,
on March 12th last imposed a sentence of six months
imprisonment on Mr. Paraic Haughey, Raheny, Dublin,
for contempt, yesterday gave its reasons for the decision.
The reasons (with which the President of the High
Court, Mr. Justice O'Keeffe, and Mr. Justice Murna-
ghan agreed) were read by Mr. Justice Henchy.
Mr. Haughey had been directed to show cause before
the High Court why he should not be punished for
contempt in refusing to answer questions put to him by
the Committee of Public Accounts on February 17th
last.
Mr. Haughey challenged the validity under the
Constitution of the Committee of Public Accounts of
Dáil Eireann (Privilege and Procedure) Act, 1970.
In the High Court, Mr. Haughey was found guilty of
contempt and sentenced to six months imprisonment.
The Court stated that it would give its reasons later and
refused a stay of execution and also refused an appli-
cation for bail, pending an appeal to the Supreme
Court. The Supreme Court, however, granted a stay of
execution pending the hearing of the appeal.
Mr. Justice Henchy said that he first proposed to deal
deal with the grounds (other than those challenging the
constitutional validity of the Act) relied on as showing
cause why Mr. Haughey should not be punished as if
he had been guilty of contempt of the High Court. It
was submitted that the powers and functions conferred
on the Committee by the resolution of Dáil Eireann
entrusting this inquiry to the Committee were
ultra vires
Standing Order 127 of the Standing Orders of Dáil
Eireann.
Standing Order 127 stated that the function of the
Committee was "to examine and report to the Dáil upon
the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums
granted by the Dáil to meet public expenditure and to
suggest alterations and improvements in the form of the
estimates submitted to the Dáil."
It was the contention of counsel for Mr. Haughey
that when Dáil Eireann by its resolution of 1st December
1970 entrusted to the Committee an examination of any
monies transferred by the Irish Red Cross Society to a
bank account into which monies voted by Dáil Eireann
were or might have been lodged, it was seeking to
endow it with functions beyond the ambit of those
vested in it by Standing Order 127.
The monies of the Irish Red Cross Society, it was
said, derived from sources such as public subscriptions
and Standing Order 127 gave no power to the Com-
mittee to examine the expenditure of such monies.
(1) This contention would not call into question the
delegation to the Committee of an examination of the
expenditure of the grant-in-aid for Northern Ireland.
IS
Consequently this argument, even if well-founded, would
help Mr. Haughey only if his refusal had been limited to
questions dealing with the Red Cross monies. It was not
so limited, so this argument was irrelevant to the circum-
stances of this case.
(2) Mr. Justice Henchy then dealt with the
contention of counsel for Mr. Haughey that
Standing Order 127 had not been made by the Dáil
as required by the Constitution, and having examined
the history of amendments to Standing Orders, he held
that the challenge to the validity of Standing Order
127 must fail.
It had been «contended (3) that if arguments against
the jurisdiction of the Committee failed, Mr. Haughey
was not in default of Section 3 (4) of the Act in that the
questions he refused to answer were not questions to
which the Committee could have legally required him
to answer under oath. The basis of this submission was,
firstly, that the Committee had no power to administer
an oath to him because the Oireachtas Witnesses Oaths
Act, 1924, did not apply and, secondly, that even if it
did there was no compliance with Section 3 of the Act.
That this submission was unmeritorious was shown
by the fact that Mr. Haughey appeared before the
Committee with a written statement which he read out
under oath and in which he claimed to be entitled as of
right to make under oath.
It had been proved in that Court that John R.
Tobin, clerk of the Committee, was duly authorised by
the Ceann Comhairle on 23rd December 1970, to
administer oaths and that it was he who administered
the oath to Mr. Haughey. So that ground failed.
(4) The point was taken quite rightly, that Section 3
(4) of the Act, being a penal provision, should be con-
strued strictly. For that reason it was said that the certi-
ficate of the offence given under the hand of the chair-
man of the Committee was insufficient in that it did not
specify what were the questions which Mr. Haughey
was legally required to answer and which he refused to
answer.
It was argued that the charge against Mr. Haughey
should be given in the certificate with the particularity
of an indictment. If that were so, said Mr. Justice
Henchy, he would be prepared to hold that the certi-
ficate complied with that requirement. In the present
case the certificate could have left Mr. Haughey in no
doubt as to what offence he was being charged with
and, considering that he had failed to yield the infor-
mation sought by every question that was put to him,
he could not be heard to say that the certificate with-
held from him reasonable information as to the nature
of the charge. The point taken was a purely technical
one and, in his view, it was unsustainable.
(5) Mr. Justice Henchy also rejected the submission
made by counsel for Mr. Haughey that it should have
been shown that the certificate was made by the unani-
mous decision of the Committee.
Mr. Justice Henchy said that when the matter was
before the President of the High Court on 24th February
1971 the President gave liberty to Mr. Haughey to show
cause why he should not be punished by filing either an
affidavit or a notice showing cause. Mr. Haughey had
chosen to file a statement of cause. He had supplied no
evidence at the hearing in support of the cause shown
but had applied for liberty to cross-examine the chair-
man of the Committee.
The reason given to the Court for that application
was that it was intended by such cross-examination to
establish (a) the conduct of the Committee at previous
hearings (b) that one or two other witnesses had been
allowed to give evidence before the Committee which