Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Has the new Court of Appeal which is now up and running become another gravy train for the legal profession? Are there many cases where one State agency is suing another? I am not expecting to get that information now but I ask the Minister of State to provide a report on that as soon as possible. We often hear of cases where a local authority is being sued by the Inland Fisheries Board, for example. State agencies often have competing briefs. If we want to do something on a river, for example, the Inland Fisheries Board might have one view on it, while the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, or a local authority might have a different view.

Sometimes in such cases, State agencies end up facing each other in court at the taxpayer's expense. If the Minister of State does not have any information on that question now, I ask that he would send on a note to the committee. That is the sort of thing that drives people bonkers, when the taxpayer is being caught for the costs on both sides.