Mr Denis Riordan has said he will not decide on his next move until the European Investment Bank makes a decision on the Government's nomination of Mr Hugh O'Flaherty for the position of vice-president of the bank.
"I will wait and see what it does. It is a question of whether it will rubber-stamp Mr O'Flaherty's nomination, or set in place a proper selection procedure and advertise the position, so that all suitably qualified people can apply," he said last night.
Describing yesterday's judgment as "a victory for democracy", he said it was now clear that the Minister for Finance and the Government had misled the people, the Dail and the High Court, in insisting that they had the sole power to make the nomination. "The bank itself has also contradicted that assertion."
Mr Michael Nugent, a Dublin writer who assisted Mr O'Riordan in his challenge, said the Supreme Court decision was "absolutely 100 per cent a victory for us. The court dismissed the challenge because the Government effectively surrendered its original position, so there was nothing left to challenge."
Mr Nugent said the Government had claimed in the High Court that the appointment to the bank "was a political one decided at intergovernmental level in Europe. They are now acknowledging that they can't make an appointment. They can only indicate a preference of candidature. In real terms this is a job anyone can apply for and anyone can express a preference. I could express a preference for my cat."
"Critically," Mr Nugent continued, "the bank has received a number of applications for the post and will now have to put in place procedures to decide to whom to award the job."
He said early media reports assumed the Government had had a legal right to nominate Mr O'Flaherty. "They can express a preference but that has no legal standing. The bank must now make its decision on who to appoint, minding that its primary responsibility is to the bank and not to political concerns.
"Nobody has raised this before," he said. "Until now the Government has made its preference known and effectively used it as a `nomination'. So with just one candidate each time, the bank had only to decide whether or not the one candidate was suitable for the job.
"These EIB jobs have been treated as something of a cookie jar by all European governments. It's just the Irish Government had thrust its hand in a little to deep and was rattling the jar too much, drawing attention to it," Mr Nugent concluded.