Former independent minister of state Finian McGrath has told the High Court that he was treated exactly the same as full senior ministers when he sat around the cabinet table between 2016 and 2020.
Mr McGrath was what is colloquially known as a "super junior" minister with special responsibility for disabilities under taoiseach Enda Kenny and subsequently, Leo Varadkar, meaning he could attend cabinet meetings.
He is giving evidence in support of the action being taken by TD Paul Murphy who says the attendance of super junior ministers at cabinet meetings is a breach of the constitution.
A three-judge division of the High Court is hearing the case due to its constitutional importance.
The court, presided over by High Court President Mr Justice David Barniville heard a similar challenge taken by Sinn Féin TD Pa Daly earlier in the week.
Mr McGrath said he had come to court to give his experience as a super junior minister.
He told Mr Murphy's Senior Counsel John Rogers that he was treated with respect and that every single person in the cabinet room was treated the same.
He said he was encouraged to participate in cabinet debates and to participate in decision-making, something he said he was "pleasantly surprised" by.
He told the court the taoiseach would go around the table and he would often intervene on other issues such as foreign policy.
He also gave evidence that when Ireland ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, he was sent to the UN to give a speech.
He said he and his colleague Shane Ross, who was Minister for Transport, would often "block" decisions at Cabinet if they disagreed with them.
He said he would say he would not accept something, and afterwards discussions would take place and he would put forward proposals which would go back to the taoiseach.
He said he could think of five concrete examples where he influenced government decisions but could not outline them in court due to the requirement for cabinet discussions to remain confidential.
Mr McGrath said he was often a dissenting voice at cabinet and he felt that Mr Varadkar in particular liked the idea of Mr McGrath challenging Fine Gael members.
He said he was told that disability was his responsibility and he had brought memos to cabinet over the years.
He said some were shared with other ministers but some were brought by him on his own.
Under cross-examination by the Attorney General Rossa Fanning, Mr McGrath said, based on experience, he did not think a super junior minister was of a lower order than a full government minister.
Mr McGrath said there was "a section of society that would sneer at super junior ministers".
This was one of the reasons he said that he wanted to put on the record that super juniors were different to ordinary ministers of state.
He agreed however with Mr Fanning that the salaries of ministers of state attending cabinet were around €20,000 lower than the salaries of full government ministers.
Mr Fanning put it to him that his speech at the UN could be described as an honour or a career-defining moment, but that it did not involve the exercise of any statutory power.
Mr McGrath said he did not accept the Attorney General’s "downgrading" of what happened.
He said he did not accept either the evidence of the Government Secretary General that junior ministers could not bring memos to the government and that this was something that could only be done by the senior minister in a department.
He provided four examples of issues on which he said he had brought memos to the cabinet solely in his own name.
However, when Mr Fanning produced copies of the memos in the names of Mr McGrath and the then minister for health Simon Harris, Mr McGrath said "in the real world" he had brought memos to cabinet and presented them.
He agreed there was no specific entitlement for him to attend cabinet meetings under law and he agreed he had no legal power to block any decision, although he said his point was that he had political influence.
The current Secretary General to the Government John Callinan told the court that the 15 ministers were the members of the government and anyone else who was in the room was there by agreement with the Taoiseach.
He said this would be long standing practice and there was no documentation authenticating the government position to allow junior ministers to attend cabinet.
He denied a suggestion by Mr Rogers that he was putting too much emphasis on the "phoney issue" of the memoranda to the government.
Mr Callinan said it was impossible to consider the case without understanding the process by which the Government prepares for decisions.
Earlier, historian Professor Diarmaid Ferriter told the court the issues of collective cabinet responsibility and cabinet confidentiality had been of concern since the time of the Civil War as the politicians tried to recover from divisions and maintain unity.
He agreed with Senior Counsel Catherine Donnelly for the state that, notwithstanding this, it was not in dispute that since 1919, there was a practice of individuals who were not members of the government attending government meetings.
The court has also heard evidence from Professor Andrew Blick, a professor of politics and contemporary history in King’s College London, and Professor Eunan O’Halpin, a retired professor of contemporary Irish history in Trinity College Dublin.
The final witness tomorrow is expected to be Professor Eoin O’Malley from Dublin City University.
After that the court is expected to hear closing submissions from each side before reserving its decision.
