Judge Anthony Halpin made remarks on the ongoing RTÉ scandal on Friday while dealing with 159 people summonsed to court over failure to pay, The Irish Times reports.

The judge said he acknowledged those before the court “may feel a little hard done by when they see the way RTÉ has abused statutory funding which is annually provided to RTÉ”.

He spoke of being “appalled and disgusted that such clandestine, secretive and dubious goings-on would be the order of the day in respect of arrangements between RTÉ and the Godlike personalities who seem to be above scrutiny”.

However, Judge Halpin said “the law is the law” and he had no choice but to punish non-payment.

He also praised members of the Oireachtas for their “sterling work in exposing and uncovering wrongdoing”.