The case of Philip Sheedy seemed a "matter of simple justice" when it was first brought to his attention, Mr Hugh O'Flaherty has said in television and radio interviews. However, the former Supreme Court judge conceded that "with the wisdom of hindsight" he would not have become involved.
Mr O'Flaherty also told TV3 and Today FM that he would be taking up the job as vice-president of the European Investment Bank unless the Government or the Supreme Court decided otherwise. Not to do so would be "a form of surrender".
Asked by TV3's political correspondent, Ursula Halligan, what had "moved" him to act the way he did after his October 1998 meeting with Mr Sheedy's sister and a family friend, the former judge said: "Well, it wasn't a question of being moved. It just seemed to make sense that something should be done about it.
"The man had got four years' imprisonment. He'd been promised a review after two. The review had disappeared out of the place and he was now serving four years. So it seems as a matter of simple justice that something should have been done."
Interviewed on Today FM's The Last Word, Mr O'Flaherty said he had not believed he was running a risk in intervening. The Court of Criminal Appeal was run on a "reasonably informal basis" at the time, with many prisoners representing themselves. "A lot of people would come to the registrar looking for help and the registrar might come to me and say `well, what do we do?' So there was a lot of ad-hoc decisions made simply to get a case on. I can't see, and can't see to this day, what's wrong with getting any case into court."
He also told the interviewer, Eamon Dunphy, that while he did not know of any other case in which he intervened in the same way, "I would have made other suggestions from time to time. I met people casually and they'd say `how do we do this? How do we get our case on?' And I might come up with suggestions as to how they might do it."
Mr O'Flaherty told TV3 the controversy which followed when his role and that of former High Court judge Mr Cyril Kelly in Mr Sheedy's release became public was "very tough" on his family.
However, the former judge said he saw nothing wrong with the Taoiseach's suggestion that he explain his actions publicly. He added: "My tale is a simple one, whether it's accepted or not I can't say."
Asked by Ms Halligan if he would undo any of his actions of the last 18 months, he said "with the wisdom of hindsight I wouldn't have done anything . . . But then I wouldn't have done anything in a whole lot of other situations as well if it had untoward consequences such as this produced."
As the Today FM interview was being broadcast, Mr Kelly declined to say anything about the case. Speaking to The Irish Times he said: "I'm here with my family. I'm not commenting to the media at all."