THE HIGH COURT
RECORD NO. 2819P/2007

Between

CATHERINE MURPHY and
FINIAN McGRATH

Plaintiffs

And

THE MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, HERITAGE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, IRELAND AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Defendants

23rd April 2007

1. The Plaintiffs’ motion for directions came before the Court.

2. Counsel for the Plaintiffs indicated that the respective counsel for the parties had discussed the issues and the Defendants had indicated that their defence was being drafted and was expected to be completed shortly.

3. Counsel for the Plaintiffs said that the Plaintiffs had written to the Defendants seeking an Appearance from the Defendants and also seeking agreement for an application to get directions from the court. In these circumstances, he said, the Plaintiffs were applying for costs on the motion.

4. Counsel for the Defendants opposed the application for costs and said he was sure the court would have many more important things to consider than the costs on the motion and he would be satisfied to have the costs reserved. He indicated that he believed the parties would need to exchange witness statements and hoped that he might be ready by Thursday in this regard and in regard to the service of a defence.

5. Counsel for the Defendants said, in so many words, it was undesirable that the issue should be left unresolved with an election in the offing.

6. The judge indicated that, without binding anyone, he felt it might be a case where particular matters might be agreed between the parties, with a consequent saving in time; that the outstanding issues might be reduced to legal argument.

7. The parties indicated they would commence the necessary work and hoped to be in a better position by Thursday to say when they would be ready for trial. They said a trial on Thursday of next week might be achievable.

8. The court indicated the matter would be listed again on 26th April 2007 to review the situation. The court reserved the costs on the Motion.

It has been asserted by some in the chattering classes (politicians and their agents) that the Irish electorate is cynical.

The concise Oxford English Dictionary (1964) defines these words as follows:

CYNICAL: Churlish; captious; incredulous of human goodness; sneering

SCEPTICAL: Inclined to suspense of judgement, given to questioning truth of facts & soundness of inferences, critical, incredulous; accepting Pyrrhonism, denying possibility of knowledge; holding, designed to support, inspired by, the ideas of the sceptics

Pyrrhonism is a reference to one of the sceptics of antiquity – Pyrrho of Elis who held that certainty of knowledge is unattainable.

For our purposes it can be taken as a given that the Irish electorate are not debating the ideas of Pyrrho or any other sceptic of antiquity in the pubs, clubs or meeting places of Ireland.

This apart there is a clear difference between a Cynic and a Sceptic.

A voter meeting a politician is reasonable in being “Inclined to suspense of judgement, given to questioning truth of facts & soundness of inferences” as opposed to one “incredulous of human goodness”.

The obverse of this is: A politician who abuses the electorate by claiming they respond to him with denials of the possibility of human goodness, when they do nothing of the sort, being merely “Inclined to suspense of judgement, given to questioning truth of facts & soundness of inferences”, is revealing everything about himself/herself and nothing about the electorate.