The Oireachtas sub-committee investigating cost overruns in the mini-CTC rail signalling project will be told by the High Court on Monday whether it may proceed with its hearings.
An application to lift a stay on the subcommittee's proceedings, granted last week to Ms Noreen McDonnell, widow of the late CI╔ chief executive, Mr Michael McDonnell, when she secured leave to challenge aspects of the subcommittee's work, concluded before Mr Justice ╙ Caoimh yesterday.
Earlier, opposing the lifting of the stay, Mr Garrett Cooney SC, for Ms McDonnell, said the establishment of Oireachtas committees to carry out investigations which affected the good name and reputations of citizens marked the ascension of "a parallel system of justice in Ireland".
He said the mini-CTC subcommittee was only the third such committee to be established. The others investigated issues relating to DIRT and the shooting dead of John Carthy.
Mr Cooney complained that remarks made by some politicians who were members of the Joint Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport when questioning Mr McDonnell about the mini- CTC project in November last year indicated they had prejudged matters before the subcommittee even began its public hearings.
Some of those politicians were now members of the mini-CTC sub-committee
During that hearing, it was put to Mr McDonnell the mini-CTC tender was granted to a "manifestly incompetent'" company, the matter was a "fiasco", CI╔ had been taken for "a ride" and its management were "fools", counsel said. Such remarks were unacceptable because politicians were exercising a quasi-judicial function and indicated prejudgment of matters still being investigated.
In the proceedings to date, not a single question had been asked which addressed the other side of the case, Mr Cooney said.
If the stay was lifted, the subcommittee could conclude its evidence-gathering stage within four days after which cross-examination of witnesses could begin, Mr Felix McEnroy SC, for the subcommittee, has said. Mr Cooney disputed that suggestion.
