Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Rabbitte makes a valid point about the tribunals. I assure him this was not my intention — as anybody who looked at the record would also conclude — when I participated with others in setting them up, although obviously I had responsibility as Taoiseach. As some of my staff have shown me a number of times, at that stage all of us indicated that two years seemed to be an awful long time for a tribunal to come to a conclusion. On one occasion in 1999 Deputies agreed that if the tribunal went to the summer of 2000, we could live with that. We are in the summer of 2005 and the total cost of the tribunals is, I believe, more than €200 million based on the figure of €197 million I saw some months ago. This was not my intention.

While I do not wish to be contentious, when one looks back at the costs for different years and compares the rates paid currently to the new rates negotiated by the Minister, the enormous difference in the figures will certainly create many difficulties for the individuals concerned. The new rate will be €213,000 as against the current rate, a multiple of that figure, negotiated for all the tribunals. The previous Minister for Finance was tough in that respect. He reached a position on the Ferns and Neary inquiries and the Barr, Moriarty, Morris and Mahon tribunals and arrived at dates for each, most of which are this year, with some early next year. The exceptions are the Morris tribunal which has a date of September 2006 and the Mahon tribunal which has a date of March 2007. I understand that under the agreement the new rates will apply from the specified dates. If the tribunals make a case that this should be otherwise, the matter will have to be brought to the House.

On the terms of reference, Deputies Rabbitte, Kenny and other party leaders, including Deputy Sargent, and I endeavoured in the legislation passed last year to keep to the issues because the question which would otherwise arise would not be whether the tribunals would conclude during my time as Taoiseach but whether they would do so during my lifetime. I hope to be alive for another few years but the difficulty is that if we do not keep to the issues, the tribunals will go on forever. A further difficulty is the relevance of issues dating back to 1997. They are important but if one does not bring them to a conclusion, they will go on and on. I cannot honestly tell Deputy Rabbitte what will happen when the position changes.

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