A three-judge High Court will rule tomorrow on the challenge by 36 garda∅ to an Oireachtas sub-committee inquiry into the shooting dead last year of Mr John Carthy in Abbeylara, Co Longford. The decision will have far-reaching implications for the powers of the Oireachtas to hold inquiries into events of major public importance. There have been only three such inquiries and just one of those, the inquiry concerning Deposit Interest Retention Tax by the Dβil Committee on Public Accounts, actually concluded.
The two other inquiries - one into the Abbeylara incident by the sub-committee of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights, the other into cost overruns in the mini-CTC rail-signalling project, by a sub-committee of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport - are being challenged in the courts.
Tomorrow's judgment will have implications for the legal challenge to the mini-CTC inquiry.
The challenge to the Abbeylara sub-committee concluded last month after 19 days.
It opened on July 17th and ran for nine days, resuming on October 2nd and concluding on October 15th.