An unprecedented legal confrontation between the Oireachtas and the judiciary is expected after a tribunal ordered two politicians to give it confidential information.
The Labour TD, Mr Brendan Howlin, and Senator Jim Higgins of Fine Gael yesterday pledged to fight the order by the Morris tribunal, which is investigating allegations of Garda corruption in Co Donegal.
Special meetings of the Oireachtas Committees on Procedure and Privileges are likely to be held next week to consider High Court action against the ruling. This raises the prospect of a long legal battle between the Oireachtas and a tribunal it set up.
Should the High Court rule in favour of the committees, the tribunal is considered likely to make an appeal to the Supreme Court. Equally, the committees are believed likely to go to the Supreme Court if their case fails.
Sources said last night the Cabinet had not considered the ruling by Mr Justice Frederick Morris, who chairs the tribunal. However, the Government is thought unlikely to object to a court challenge by the committees.
The office of the Ceann Comhairle, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, chairman of the Dáil Committee on Procedure and Privileges, would say only that no meeting would take place before Tuesday.
Party whips are expected in advance of any meeting to call on the committees to seek a judicial review of the ruling. This is seen as a logical step. The whips agreed last month that the committees would seek representation at a hearing by the tribunal on the confidentiality of sources.
The tribunal has compelled Mr Howlin and Senator Jim Higgins to identify the source of corruption allegations made to them in 2000. The politicians had been approached separately by an unnamed individual, presumed to be a serving or former garda. The claims were instrumental in the establishment of the tribunal after Mr Howlin and Mr Higgins relayed the allegations to the then Minister for Justice, Mr John O'Donoghue.
Mr Howlin said he had acted properly at all times and believed it was ironic he would have had absolute privilege if he had made the allegations on the floor of the Dáil. He said yesterday the ruling was "even more serious" than a High Court judgment in 2001, which placed severe limits on the scope of special inquiries by Oireachtas committees.
Mr Higgins said there was an "urgent and compelling case" to protect what he said was the constitutional right to protect their sources.
Mr Justice Morris said in his ruling that it would be "entirely wrong" if the tribunal could not secure information which could prove the innocence of people wrongly convicted on the basis of alleged wrongdoing by gardaí.
