Beaks v Biffo - what a case it could be . . .

DAIL SKETCH:STANDING ROOM only in the courtroom.

Grizzled silks fight over seats. Gardaí and prison officers line the walls. Journalists cram the press box.

It’s the court case of the year.

The Beaks v Biffo.

The judges of Ireland have brought an action against Brian Cowen and the plain people. It’s a class action – not because the judges are 148 in number, but because they are simply class.

Silence! All Rise! And their lordships troop into the witness box and say how their constitutional rights have been trampled upon in a most vile manner by an upstart from Clara who is only a small-town solicitor.

To impose a pension levy upon them is to invite the destruction of the State. To make them take a drop in pay is to slash violently at the delicate fabric of our hard-won democracy.

Who can forget those turbulent days when our forefathers went to Dáil Éireann with guns under their coats, and drunken deputies driving to or from Leinster House could not be arrested for fear it was the beginning of a coup? So in the interests of this great nation, their lordships are throwing themselves on the mercy of their pals and asserting their right to decide the destiny of their pay packets . . . As if.

As if the judges would ever go to court rather than pay a pension levy that every other public servant in the country has had to pay since last April. No arguments entertained.

Enda Kenny was puzzled yesterday as to why the Government had made such heavy weather of exempting the judiciary from this cut.

Sadly, the Fine Gael leader was so exercised by the issue he made little sense. It seems he was telling the Taoiseach he should have disregarded the advice given on the matter by his Attorney General and slapped the levy on their lordships anyway.

See you in court, boys, and all that.

Brian Cowen said it couldn’t be done. (Although there’s been much comment over the past week from all sorts of legal authorities to the effect that imposing the levy wouldn’t result in the downfall of the State.) The Taoiseach came over all musical. Which was appropriate, as Labour leader Eamon Gilmore spent much of the afternoon demanding that he bring “statutory instruments” into the chamber.

“It is not appropriate for one organ of the government to interfere with the constitutionally protected rights of another organ of government,” said Biffo.

As in the Dáil (mouth organ) trying to impose the levy on the judges (have-the-Cabinet-over-a-barrel organ).

That would constitute taking a liberty.

Although when the legislature decides to treat the judicial organ to a raise, that’s a very welcome form of interference.

The levy was introduced at the beginning of the year. Each of their lordships have until the end of the year to decide whether or not they want to contribute.

Enda Kenny thought it was disgraceful of the Taoiseach to have put them in this terrible position. “I believe that you have placed the judges in a most enviable position here,” he said.

He might have meant to say “unenviable”, but enviable makes sense too. Particularly to all those other public service workers who had no choice but to pay the levy.

God love the poor judges. According to the Taoiseach, they have been battling “constitutional inhibitions” since the levy was introduced. In fact, all they want to do is cast off those inhibitions and pay up.

Mind you, only 19 of them have managed so far. Good news is, they have until the end of the year. Unlike everyone else.

Taking out one of Eamon Gilmore’s statutory instruments – a small fiddle – the Taoiseach played a plaintive tune on behalf of the judiciary.

“It is members of the judiciary themselves, on their own judicial initiative, who considered it as a matter of duty to seek ways to meet the constitutional inhibitions, while at the same time respecting the spirit of the Constitution.” Did you ever hear such codswallop? It rendered Enda quite incoherent.

“I’m afraid Deputy Kenny has taken five sides of the argument here, and I don’t know which side he’s on at the moment,” said Taoiseach Cowen, grateful that the Fine Gael leader’s confused line of questioning didn’t make him look as ineffectual as it could have.

His backbencher Niall Collins was all over the airwaves on Monday demanding that a simple referendum to deal with the issue of judges’ pay be held with the Lisbon referendum.

Niall is more clued in than his boss, and with the public mood.

All Brian Cowen had to do was say to the judiciary: “See yis in court, boys.” Far from undermining the stability of the State, this simple action would have gone some way towards strengthening it.

As for their lordships, they’d be happy not to have to suffer this sort of “enviable” position again.