Appointment of Woulfe leapfrogged judge vetting system

An advisory body existed to help avoid insider judicial appointments, but on this occasion it was ignored

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has rejected opposition claims that he agreed to the Supreme Court appointment of Woulfe in return for getting the right to choose Paul Gallagher as his Attorney General

The coalition government scrapped an existing system for vetting judicial appointments when it chose to put Seamus Woulfe, the former attorney general, onto the Supreme Court.

The appointment of a previous attorney general, Máire Whelan, to a senior judicial position in 2017 had caused controversy. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, then in opposition, described it in the Dáil as “an insider appointment that stinks to high heaven”.

The Fine Gael minority government commissioned a review ...