Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2021-09-29
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

On 14 July, I raised with the Taoiseach the gross abuse of power by a retired Kerry judge, James O'Connor. I explained how he had abused his position, persistently and completely inappropriately, to pursue a vulnerable woman, who was before his court on a family law matter, for a sexual relationship. During the summer, I was contacted by another woman, who told me a very similar story relating to the same judge. She too was before him on a family law matter.
He approached her repeatedly, he got her number and then he persistently pursued her. There are multiple incidents, so I will not go through all of them. I will quote one incident she related to me. She said:
He rang me another day and said he had stuff for my case. He told me to meet him at the back door of the courthouse. I went to the back door. He was waiting. He said he did not have the paperwork with him. He brought me in there to get the paperwork. Then he lunged at me. I pushed him and left. He obviously felt he could have done anything he wanted to.
That is Ms B. in Michael Clifford's story in The Examiner today. There is also a Ms C.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-09-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:37+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-09-29