The #golfgate report summarised in 10 tweets…

Seamus Woulfe checked with the Chief Justice, Frank Clarke, whether it was appropriate to attend the Oireachtas Golf Society outing. Clarke said he saw no problem with this.

Mr Woulfe says he only learned of a dinner event when he showed up at lunchtime to pay his golfing fee and was handed a dinner voucher in return. He didn't think it necessary or practicable to check with the Chief Justice whether it was appropriate to attend it.

Mr Woulfe says he was assured by the organisers that the event was fully in compliance. They had already changed venue to ensure this. Woulfe was particularly assuaged because Donie Cassidy, society president, is himself a hotelier and so would be familiar with the rules.

Mr Woulfe says he was shepherded to his table by his host, former senator Paul Coghlan, and was not aware that there were another four tables of diners on the other side of a full-length partition behind his back.

(The report makes no mention of the 10-table plan on display.)

Mr Woulfe says that although another guest (ex-FF TD Gerry Brady) later appeared from behind him to collect a prize, he did not notice any gap in the wall, or realise that there were more guests nearby behind him.

He did not notice any later removal of the wall for speeches.

He also says he was "dumbfounded" to hear Dara Calleary had resigned as Minister for Agriculture over his attendance, and "racked his brain to see if there was something he had missed"…

…and was "astonished" at reports that the permitted numbers at indoor gatherings had fallen from 50 to 6, per a Cabinet decision three days earlier.

"He knew that there had to be a process to bring in a
Statutory Instrument" (S.I.) before the new policy had the force of law.

Mr Woulfe compiled a timeline showing that this new S.I. had not been issued by the time of the dinner, nor were new Fáilte Ireland guidelines issued to hotels on operating it.

Further, the law then in operation prohibited organising an event of 50+, but not attending one.

The report (from former chief justice Mrs Susan Denham) accepts this argument and says it was therefore "not unreasonable for him to consider that the dinner was COVID-19 compliant."

Mrs Denham recommends "that a Code of Judicial Conduct and Judicial Ethical Guidelines should be introduced as a matter of urgency" and that, had they been issued before the dinner, the events would likely never have arisen.

Comment: The premise that the Government's public health guidelines are only to be honoured when they have the force of law, or when industry groups like the Irish Hotels Federation have issued formal guidance on them, is contentious and highly problematic.