There are mounting calls for the EU Commissioner Phil Hogan and Supreme Court Justice Séamus Woulfe to step down over the ‘Golf Gate’ controversy.
Opposition parties are pushing for the Dáil to be recalled over the scandal which saw 80 people, including the commissioner, the judge and former Agriculture Minister Dara Calleary, breaching COVID-19 guidelines by attending an Oireachtas Golf Society dinner in County Galway.
Minister Calleary yesterday resigned his position over the incident and was followed shortly after Fine Gael Senator Jerry Buttimer who stepped down as Leas-Cathaoirleach of the Seanad.
Meanwhile, three Fianna Fáil senators and three Fine Gael senators who attended have lost their party whip.
I have spoken with the Taoiseach. He has refused my request to recall the Dail. He is wrong. The government is increasingly chaotic, confused, with no direction. They must be held to account.
— Mary Lou McDonald (@MaryLouMcDonald) August 21, 2020
The Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has called for the Dáil to be recalled as have a number of opposition parties.
Labour Party Leader Alan Kelly told Newstalk that the public have lost faith in their representatives
“The public are so angry. They feel so let down. They feel that basically the wool has been pulled over the eyes,” he said. “That some people have an entitlement to feel and to act in a way that is totally different to everybody else.
“Well they don’t. They don’t have an entitlement to act differently. We are all supposedly in this together and that fell apart in the last 48 hours.
“I believe the Dáil needs to be recalled because of this omni-shambles.”
He said Commissioner Hogan must now be forced out of his role.
“If Micheál Martin feels that Dara Calleary’s position is untenable – which it was – then Phil Hogan’s position is equally untenable,” he said.
“Nobody is too big to fall and we have to say it out straight that the commissioner now will have to be moved, will have to be changed and if the Commission won’t do it then the Taoiseach of Ireland will have to come out and say, quite publicly, we do not have confidence in him.”
Yesterday Midlands North-West MEP Luke 'Ming' Flanagan wrote to the President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen calling for Commissioner Hogan to be fired.
Dear @vonderleyen
Do the right thing. pic.twitter.com/jYKcwaOifj— Luke 'Ming' Flanagan (@lukeming) August 21, 2020
He told Newstalk that Commissioner Hogan’s position is no longer tenable.
“Micheál Martin got rid of Dara Calleary for doing the exact same thing,” he said.
“So now Micheál Martin needs to talk to Ursula Von der Leyen and tell her that Phil Hogan needs to be removed from his position.
“Because, if it is good enough to remove Dara Calleary, he needs to talk to Ursula Von der Leyen and he needs to get this man out of the position he is in.”
Meanwhile, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett noted that Judge Woulfe would have had a clear understanding of COVID-19 guidelines through both his current position and his former position as Attorney General of the previous Government.
He said he now must stand aside.
“The former Attorney General now Supreme Court Judge had signed off on the emergency legislation around COVID-19 and would have been familiar in detail with the public health restrictions and yet was involved in a flagrant violation of those restrictions,” he said.
“It is completely untenable that he would not be held to account for that.”
The same @fiannafailparty & @FineGael whose leading reps & Seamus Wolfe as attorney general, have been lecturing the public & young people in particular about their personal behaviour then do this! Positions of Phil Hogan & Seamus Wolfe now totally untenable #golfgate @pb4p
— Richard Boyd Barrett (@RBoydBarrett) August 21, 2020
Commissioner Hogan has said he attended the event "on the clear understanding that the organisers and the hotel concerned had been assured [by the Irish Hotels’ Federation] that the arrangements put in place would be in compliance with the Government’s guidelines."
He also insisted he followed all the self-isolation requirements after he arrived in Ireland in late July.
He then apologised in a later statement.
Judge Woulfe 'unreservedly apologised' for attending and also claimed that his “understanding was that the organisers and the hotel had satisfied themselves that they would be operating within Government public health guidelines.”
