Fianna Fáil justice spokesman and barrister Jim O’Callaghan advised Former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams

This morning.

Via Independent.ie:

Mr O’Callaghan yesterday led his party’s attacks on Sinn Féin over its handling of the Paul Quinn murder.

But the Irish Independent has learned the TD, who also works as a barrister, was hired by former Sinn Féin president Mr Adams to act in a defamation action against a national newspaper.

According to court filings, Mr O’Callaghan helped draft a statement of claim for Mr Adams

…Asked how he could square his representation of Mr Adams with his stance on Sinn Féin, Mr O’Callaghan defended his actions. He referenced the code of conduct of the Irish Bar which prohibits discriminating in favour of or against any person availing of their services.

Good times.

Revealed: FF TD’s work on legal case for Gerry Adams (Indpendent.ie)

Rollingnews

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13 thoughts on “Well Now

  1. V

    Maybe now people will pay more attention to the Charter for Probity in Politics launched yesterday
    By an Independent Candidate in Dublin Bay South

    Rather than copy the contents and blag it
    And try and let on they were saying the same stuff for years

    ’cause if ye were I would have seen it before now

    Busted! Ye know who ye are.

  2. Truth in the News

    As the anniversary of the Irish Civil War looms, we will see who really has blood
    on their hands, the current inheritors of FF and FG the two original protagonists
    in the conflict that cost more in lives and than the War with the British…..the Shinners
    are late comers and would have never come into existence were it not for the
    abandonment of the Nationalist’s……the current hysteria about who killed
    who is a diversion, the real issue is who would exercise power, privilege and
    patronage, those that have exercised power in Ireland in the last 10 years have
    as much blood on their hands as the killers of the innocent Paul Qouin, just look
    at the running of the HSE and the present gang warfare

  3. Rob_G

    Have none of you ever seen ‘Cape Fear’?

    We have an adversarial legal system – barristers are morally obliged to hold their nose and represent their clients to the best of their ability. Barristers defend rapists and murderers all the time; taking a brief defending a member of Sinn Féin is no different.

    I’m much more concerned about the fact that O’Callaghan is still double-jobbing as a barrister – he gets paid plenty for his work as a TD, he should devote his full attention to it.

    1. 01101101 01100011

      Hi Rob

      nicely spotted

      I’d only add that if it wasn’t for his greedy double-jobbing endeavours (no doubt generous pension parallelism play going on there too) he’d have avoided getting himself into any rotten conflicts of interest to boot

      1. Rob_G

        There is zero conflict of interest; I encourage you to read the article, O’Callaghan’s quote explains it very well.

        AFAIK, all barristers in Ireland are self-employed, so if he has any pension from that, it is because he is paying for it himself. Agree that he shouldn’t have a job outside of being a TD, though

        1. 01101101 01100011

          sorry. I don’t believe in Chinese Walls, we’d diverge there, I don’t care what the codes of conduct or ramifications are etc. etc.

          the only 100% fact I know is he’s a flesh and blood human being, flawed, open to all sorts of pressures, desires, needs, issues.

          If he was a machine, I’d concur but he’s not

          [anyway, a nod from me]

  4. Hector Ramirez

    Sinn Fein are opposed to Fine Fáil but Gerry Adams happy enough to hire one… fail to see any significance here.

  5. Denis O'Brien [redacted]

    I’m assuming you don’t have a legal background, Rob, (or even access to Wikipedia) so I’ll give you a dig-out on this one.

    Counsel are under no obligation whatsoever to ‘take on’ a client to represent them in court. Gerry’s solicitor(s) will invariably have submitted a brief to Big Jim at which point he would’ve been explicitly notified of the identity of the client (Gerry). He remained entirely free to make a conscious decision (on the exact same moral grounds he’s been adverting to over the past few weeks vis-à-vis SF/violence/blah blah blah) to refuse taking those instructions.

    But he didn’t. He voluntarily accepted them notwithstanding his ‘overriding’ morals. He then (presumably) got paid (and handsomely no doubt) for his work.

    This is how the system works. And Big Jim is quite clearly a charlatan.

    1. Lilly

      If O’Callaghan had a long-standing working relationship with Gerry’s solicitor, he would indeed have felt obliged to represent Gerry, at the risk of jeopardising future work.

      And lawyers, both solicitors and barristers, are trained to be objective so he’d be well used to leaving his morals out of the equation.

  6. D'Great Unwashed

    Well FF are getting caught crossing the fence by the same barbed wire that the tried to hang Joseph Madigan on re Maria Bailey

    https://www.thejournal.ie/micheal-martin-maria-bailey-4737035-Jul2019/

    “Fianna Fáill leader Micheál Martin has called on Madigan to clarify her role in what has become known as “swing-gate” involving Fine Gael TD Maria Bailey.

    Martin has called for greater transparency around Minister Madigan’s role in the affair.

    “I think there has been a fair degree of murkiness about that. The degree of Josepha Madigan’s involvement should be fully transparent and should be clarified,” he said.

    When asked should Madigan issue a statement, he said:
    “I think the minister needs to make a full comprehensive statement in relation to that. At the moment we’re being told that the report says she hadn’t an involvement but then we’re told she was involved in the initial documentation. What does that mean? Did she advise Maria Bailey to take the case? She needs to answer the basic question: did she or did she not advise in the early stages Maria Bailey to take the case,” he said. “”

    Will Mehole be commenting?????

    Which hat will the esteemed member of the bar be wearing if he becomes Minister for Justice?

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