Have his Supreme Court colleagues, led by Chief Justice Frank Clarke, overstepped the mark?

Mr Woulfe, who has admitted by way of his letter to the chief justice to deep regret over his decision to attend the ‘golfgate’ event in Clifden on August 19, has also argued quite vociferously that he remains a member of the highest court in the land.

He does so safe in the knowledge that law is on his side.

He does so too with the report into his attendance at Clifden by former Chief Justice Susan Denham, which concluded his removal from the court would be “unjust and disproportionate”, tucked in his back pocket.

Even though he did not have to by law, Séamus Woulfe voluntarily cooperated with the process.

Part of his motivation may be that having left the bar to become Attorney-General between 2016 and 2020 and now with his elevation to the Supreme Court, he is unable to simply pick up his Senior Counsel career and therefore leaving would leave him unable to work.

In his written reply to the Chief Justice on Monday, Mr Woulfe responded to the notion of a reprimand.

“The first (matter) is that you have reprimanded me in relation to my attendance at the dinner. While I believe it is based on a misunderstanding to which I will refer further below, I would accept the reprimand if that would ensure resolution of this matter,” he said.

“The second matter is that you have informed me that I will not be assigned to sit to hear any cases in the Supreme Court until February 2021. I would be willing to accept that also to again ensure resolution of this matter,” he added.

Salary waiver

While Judge Clarke felt a three-month waiver of his salary was appropriate, Judge Woulfe counter-offered by suggesting he donated a month’s salary to a charity of his choice.

He later gave further ground on this issue in a bid to resolve this matter.

“I would be willing to forgo my salary for not only one month but for the full three-month period if that would ensure resolution of this matter, and if so I would propose to volunteer to transmit my salary for those three months to a nominated charity already identified to you. I believe that to be unprecedented for any judge or, acknowledging the distinction, for any public servant in the history of the State,” he said.

Judge Woulfe in his letter offered too to sit as a High Court Judge during this three-month period in order to assist with any shortage of judges and any delays for litigants in certain lists in that Court.

It must be said that other legal sources have suggested that this suggestion of a spin in the High Court emanated not from Woulfe but from Judge Clarke as part of his suggested original sanction.

On radio on Tuesday morning, former Judge Michael Pattwell came to Judge Woulfe’s defence, saying he should sit tight.

He said that Séamus Woulfe “should get a good PR person to help him” and that if he was in that situation he would “let it play out” and not resign.

The Chief Justice and the Supreme Court have “backed themselves into a corner” he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.

There was no law to back the stance taken by the other members of the Supreme Court, he said. How would they sit with Judge Woulfe in the future?

Impeachment

Mr Pattwell said he could not see any efforts at impeachment succeeding, “political or otherwise.” 

What had happened following the Oireachtas golf dinner in Clifden was “not serious enough” to warrant the resignation of the judge, Mr Pattwell added. 

Both Séamus Woulfe and Phil Hogan had been “quite arrogant in how they handled it”, he said.

The Chief Justice should not have “invented a sanction” that did not exist in law and he would have been better “keeping it to himself."

"There was nothing to back up what he said, it’s just an opinion," Mr Pattwell added.

“If I was Séamus Woulfe, I would stay and let it play out.” 

All of what had transpired had come about because “Dara Calleary jumped too soon,” he said. “He set the tone then.” 

On the same programme, former Minister Shane Ross also said that the Supreme Court had backed itself into a corner on the issue. Retired chief justice Susan Denham had been asked to conduct an investigation, but her recommendation had been ignored by Justice Clarke.

Politicians don’t want to touch the issue, he said.

There are many who will say Judge Woulfe should resign and has brought the Supreme Court into serious ill repute by his actions. This is a valid view and there is no doubt Séamus Woulfe has erred in his judgement.

There are others, however, backed by the Denham report and by the law who argue his mistakes do not warrant resignation.