The widow of the former CI╔ chief executive, Mr Michael McDonnell, has secured an interim High Court order halting an Oireachtas subcommittee inquiry into cost overruns in a rail signalling project. However, lawyers for the inquiry may apply to the court to discharge the order and are expected to do so imminently.
Mr Justice Kelly yesterday directed the six-member committee into the mini-CTC rail signalling project to cease all further sittings.
He made the interim order after an application by Ms Noreen McDonnell, Terenure Road West, Dublin, widow of Mr McDonnell, who died on April 9th last. He had retired from the company in February last.
Ms McDonnell was also granted leave to challenge certain procedures adopted by the subcommittee in regard to cross-examination of witnesses.
The judge was told the inquiry has some three or four weeks to run. The matter was made returnable before the High Court on October 16th but the sub-committee has liberty to come before the court before that to seek to discharge the order.
In an affidavit, Ms McDonnell complained that the subcommittee, while granting her a right of legal representation before it, was refusing to make provision for her side's legal costs.
She also said the restriction on cross-examination of witnesses at the inquiry was seriously prejudicial to endeavours to protect the good name and reputation of her late husband.
She believed the manner in which the subcommittee had conducted itself was unfair, unjust and in contravention of the principles of natural and constitutional justice and in breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ms McDonnell, a mother of three children, said her late husband had been chief executive of CI╔ from 1995 to 2000.
Questions in relation to her husband had already been asked at the subcommittee inquiry, which, she understood, would be making a report in due course. She and her children had a direct interest in the protection of the good name and reputation of her husband during the investigation.
She was concerned about prejudice arising from the subcommittee's procedures and conduct.
Her solicitors had had a great deal of correspondence with the subcommittee raising serious concerns about its procedures but the sub-committee had failed to address these concerns satisfactorily.
The circumstances surrounding the resignation of her husband from CI╔ and his subsequent death had been a source of great trauma to her and her children, a distress that was exacerbated by the manner in which the subcommittee was conducting its inquiry, Ms McDonnell said.
Since her husband's death, she had finite resources and was concerned the costs of proper legal representation before the subcommittee would place a severe financial burden on her. No family should have to bear such a burden.
The State was the initiating party in this inquiry and should pay the costs of legal representation for herself and her children.
In another affidavit, Mr Patrick D. Rowan, of McKeever Rowan solicitors, said Ms McDonnell had received 24 folders of documents from the subcommittee just one week before it began its public proceedings.
No index was received with this documentation, which made categorising extremely difficult and time-consuming.