THE following statement was issued by the Association of Higher Civil Servants on the inquiry into the Judge Lynch controversy.
The association represents senior management in the Department of Justice, which is now to be the setting for an independent inquiry to establish how a government decision transferring a judge out of the Special Criminal Court and appointing his replacement failed to be conveyed to the judges concerned.
This association, while greatly regretting the failure which has given rise to this inquiry, feels that, in the words of this morning's Irish Times headline: "This was an accident waiting to happen".
The Department of Justice officials we represent feel it has got to the point where it is virtually impossible to provide a service that they can stand over to any Minister.
The Department of Justice deals with some of the most sensitive issues in the public administration. There is constant pressure on a very small number of key officials who are stretched beyond breaking point in coping with very high-profile issues.
Corresponding functions to those exercised by that Department are handled in other jurisdictions by two or three separate Departments of State.
We are gravely concerned that one of the most able, hard-working and personable ministers we have ever had the privilege to work with is being publicly scapegoated over an administrative error - with admittedly grave consequences - which was not of her personal making.
We welcome any independent inquiry into this matter. However, the immediate emphasis of any inquiry of this type should be on ensuring that this cannot happen again. This will require an examination of all the factors that contributed to this occurrence.
We will co-operate fully with this inquiry, but without prejudice to its outcome, we wish to place on the public record now our belief that senior staff in this Department have been working for years under impossible pressures because of a workload that has grown out of all proportion to the resources made available to cope with it.
8 November, 1996.