Might I in all modesty suggest to the Flynns of Castlebar that they desist from making court appearances? I mean no disrespect. Take that Audrey Flynn, for example. I have no doubt she is absolutely spiffing as a crecheuse, if that's the word for a lady who minds other people's children, but as a witness in court, she is poor, her grasp of facts comparing unfavourably with a trout on a trapeze.
This time last year, she was in court on numerous charges relating to driving children on commercial school runs without insurance, or tax, or licence, or PSV licence, or any certificate of roadworthiness. In a declaration which should be in the textbook called "How Not To Perform in Court", she told the court that (a) she had never been involved in a school run for the children in Ballyheane; (b) had never received £7 a week from a Mrs Collon to transport her child to and from Ballyheane School; and (c) Mrs Collon was never at the house when she, Audrey Flynn, would leave Mrs Collon's daughter off at the gate.
Lumberjack
There are days in a lawyer's life when he wished he'd become a lumberjack. For Audrey's solicitor, Pat Moran, I imagine was this one of them. I equally imagine that the presiding judge, the unfortunate Mary Devins, her head throbbing, was wondering whether or not somebody had slipped something not quite legal into her cornflakes. But no, she did not imagine the defendant Audrey Flynn saying that Audrey Flynn never drove Mrs Collon's child from school, never received any money for it, and what's more, Mrs Collon was never there when Audrey dropped the child off on the school run she supposedly never performed. Nope. That was genuinely Audrey's voice offering what she apparently thought was a defence. A bright girl.
Audrey might count herself lucky she didn't get done for perjury. As it was, she received three suspended prison sentences, was fined £6,800 and disqualified from driving for 10 years. After that experience, one might have thought the Flynn family might have steered clear of the courts. But no, a year later almost to the day, back to court came her sister Beverley, bawling for a fight with RTE - and with entirely predictable results.
No doubt this time next year, Charlotte Flynn will be in court, and the following year it will be Denise's turn, with Emily the next year, and Fanny the next, until finally, around the year 2026, Zenia will be making her own entirely unnecessary appearance, to round off the Flynn family fortunes.
State resources
By that time, we might have come round to dealing with the question: why is this happening? How can people present themselves in court without little chance of getting what they want, taking up huge State resources and official time? Should not frivolous litigants - and I refer not to Audrey here, a very model of seriousness of purpose, or to Beverley, likewise, but to their giddily irresponsible sisters Verissima, Wanka, Xavia, Yonda and of course the comely but zany Zenia - be wholly answerable for the costs of their trials? Would we not indeed be doing them a favour by inducing them to stay out of court?
So would Audrey not have been a happier Flynn if she had pled guilty as charged m'lud, if that is indeed the correct form of address to a she-beak? The judge would have thanked her for not wasting the court's time, fined her a few quid, and disqualified her from driving for a year or so. And would not Beverley have been a jollier Cooper-Flynn if she had simply ignored the rude things RTE had said about her, and got on with her life, as so many of her party colleagues in Fianna Fail have been able to do with theirs when comparably insulted?
I have no idea how Audrey La Crecheuse managed her legal costs, but might she not have been more amenable to a swift resolution of her case if in abject failure she had been obliged to pay for everything, including the rent of the courthouse? And if Bev The Banker had fully considered that there was no avoiding the costs of her case if she lost, might she not have sensibly stayed her hand?
To be sure, lawyers may decline to charge their clients for services rendered, but they were nonetheless, services rendered; and just as Ben Dunne's cash gifts to Charles Haughey (who sensibly never sued for libel) are liable to tax, are not services rendered to a person themselves a form of income, and therefore also liable to tax?
Litigant
In other words - Bev aside: I wish the silly creature no more suffering - might the Revenue Commissioners in future not insist that legal services provided on any kind of no-foal, no-fee basis be fully taxed as income? That tax is then going to have to be paid by the unsuccessful litigant. If paid by the solicitor, or anybody else for that matter, that would in itself constitute income to the litigant, and thus would also incur further taxation.
This would have two alternative effects. Either it would be to make the Revenue Commissioners very happy, or it would mean that the courts would be spared the ridiculous litigiousness that the nofoal, no-fee system provokes, and which is driving the country mad. A third effect would be a happier tribe of Flynns, for whom, perhaps uniquely, I do feel genuinely sorry. Just stay out of the courts, girls, OK? It's something you're not good at.