Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Either the Government has the sinister motive others are ascribing to it or it is simply hamfisted and can no longer conduct the business of the House competently.

If the Minister wants to agree to excise the provisions which make the powers of dissolution applicable to existing tribunals, the Labour Party will support the broad principles of the Bill. It is accepted by all sides that it is necessary to consolidate and update the law regarding public inquiries. The House of Commons took this step two or three years ago. After a generation of experience of tribunals, we have all the jurisprudence we need to update and modernise the law in this regard.

I was surprised to discover in the Minister's speech the extent to which he relied on making an argument about controlling costs. There is no doubt that since the Goodman tribunal in the early 1990s, Irish taxpayers have direct experience of the fact that tribunals under the 1921 Act are slow, cumbersome and very costly. Given the decision of the High Court in the In re Haughey case, it does not appear that it could be otherwise. The cost and duration of tribunals are, however, greatly exacerbated by the tactics, sometimes tantamount to obstruction, engaged in by parties to the tribunals, in particular the planning tribunal. In this regard, it was reasonable to expect the Taoiseach to show good example. Instead, we learned that his protestations about being anxious to get into the tribunal to tell his story were in sharp contradiction of the truth. While it is for the tribunal and not the House to decide whether the Taoiseach obstructed, he certainly engaged in obfuscation and delaying tactics and when eventually he presented at the tribunal he told not one story but several stories.

Mr. Justice Fergus Flood, in his second interim report, makes a relevant point in this regard. He stated:

All parties from whom the Tribunal legitimately sought information had an obligation to provide such information truthfully and expeditiously. The provision of misleading information or the withholding of relevant information has the capacity to hinder and obstruct the Tribunal, and inevitably leads to delay. The conduct of a statutory public inquiry is a complex and costly exercise, and this Tribunal has endeavoured to carry out its statutory functions with expedition and as economically as possible, so as to comply with the express wishes of the Oireachtas contained within its Terms of Reference.

This Tribunal continues its work more than four and a half years after its inception, not only because of the multiplicity and complexity of matters which it is obliged to investigate under its Terms of Reference, but also because of the failure of persons who have been required to provide information to the Tribunal, either documentary or otherwise, to provide such information expeditiously or, in some instances, at all.

Here, he notes the obligation on citizens to co-operate with the tribunal in a reasonably expeditious manner. It is not my job to find whether the Taoiseach, for example, obstructed the tribunal or to make any such allegation. However, as the holder of the highest office in politics, one would have expected him to co-operate with the tribunal. We find that, like a man outside the pub after closing time who takes off his jacket and calls on others to hold him back, the Taoiseach engaged in a form of shadow boxing. He could not understand the reason he was not being given access to the tribunal to tell his story. Eventually, when he appeared before the tribunal it emerged that the delay was his responsibility. That fact tells its own story.

Some of us will cast our minds back to the extraordinary circumstances in which the general election was called. The Taoiseach's furtive journey to the Phoenix Park in the early hours of a Sunday morning when nobody but the deer was up was, I believe, inspired more by his imminent appearance at Dublin Castle than by the requirement that the Dáil be dissolved.

I agree with the Minister on one issue, namely, that no ordinary taxpayer can be comfortable with the huge costs that will eventually come home to roost from the tribunals established in recent years. Deputy Flanagan made a good point in enumerating the instances of extraordinary waste of public money over the past decade and the apparent lack of Government concern about the matters he spelled out. The Government is now exceptionally concerned about the costs of tribunals. If one examines the pattern on this issue, one finds that Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have at various stages over the past decade competed for attention about how upset they were about the costs of various tribunals. The decibels of indignation were in direct proportion to the proximity to elections — if an election was in prospect, the Government became very concerned about tribunal costs.

Some Members will recall the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, express concern about what he called "this gravy train". This occurred before he left us for his own gravy train, as he was entitled to do. While no action was taken, the Government knocked two or three good weeks of publicity out of the issue. The former Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr. Michael McDowell, who is now a private citizen, then followed Mr. McCreevy's example and joined the chorus. However, he did so only after he, as Attorney General, negotiated increases in lawyers' fees at which point he became extremely agitated about the cost of tribunals.

One must be sceptical. When we reached the point at which action became unavoidable the Government, having settled on a new schedule of fees, backed off and let the status quo obtain. One formed the impression that there was an informal Government policy to beat the drum of indignation about tribunal costs in public while privately assenting to increased costs and the status quo.

Having expressed my scepticism about the argument that there is something sinister about the timing of the introduction of this Bill, its introduction is odd, given that the horse has well and truly bolted. Why introduce it now? Hundreds of theses will be written by students about our experience of a generation of tribunals. Have they been worth it? Have they changed the culture? Is there a more effective, speedier, less costly way to inquire into certain matters of public interest?

What about inquiry by parliamentary committee. Why has the Government, in all its complexions, allowed inquiry by parliamentary committee to fall below the radar. The DIRT inquiry was praised by objective analysts and commentators. It is not true, as the Minister knows, that the subsequent judgment in the Abbeylara case vetoed inquiry by parliamentary committee. It made a specific finding that where a citizen's reputation could be adversely reflected on, in such extraordinary and unique circumstances as in Abbeylara, inquiry by parliamentary committee was not appropriate. I accept that as it is common sense. The judgment was not that inquiry by parliamentary committee was not appropriate in many other cases. However, parliamentary inquiry has been allowed to wither. No effort has been made by the Government to look at that judgment and to get inquiry by parliamentary committee up and running again.

The legal profession was not in favour of the DIRT inquiry repeating itself. As legal people see the world, that is their business, not the job of Parliament and parliamentarians. The senior public service share that view, but for different reasons. The senior Civil Service thoroughly disapproved of the DIRT inquiry. How dare a committee of parliamentarians hold senior civil servants to account in public, worse still, on live television. Uniquely, the Civil Service had no role in compiling the report. The word went out that this could be the end of civilisation as we know. There would never be another DIRT style inquiry. So it has happened. In the everyday polite trade-off that happens between the Executive and the mandarinate, a meeting of minds on no further inquiry by parliamentary committee was not difficult. One party in permanent power makes such trade-offs almost routine. The Green Party is as ineffective as the Progressive Democrats Party before it in challenging the suppression of inquiry by parliamentary committee.

The former Attorney General, Mr. Michael McDowell, was probably correct when he told the DIRT inquiry on the question of tribunals versus parliamentary inquiries:

Many people sitting on a bar stool would say "surely the DIRT inquiry shows us there is a different and a better way." Yes, it has shown up very important things, but it does not mean that it simply cannot be transferred holus bolus and applied to areas which are much more contentious.

On that occasion, Mr. McDowell, giving evidence in a personal capacity, went on to say:

In short, I do not believe — and in the absence of a binding Supreme Court decision on the issue — that it is possible to state with total confidence as a matter of law that the establishment of a tribunal is always a mere policy choice, open as an alternative to conducting an inquiry by parliamentary committee. Nor is a parliamentary committee necessarily always available as an alternative to the establishment of a tribunal of inquiry.

I agree with that. Neither can apply in all circumstances, but the suppression of inquiry by parliamentary committee is to be regretted and would have saved the taxpayer enormous sums of money.

I am reminded of what Ted Heath said to the House of Commons in July 1982 on the appointment of the Falkland Islands review when he said the plain fact is that we have never succeeded in finding the perfect form of inquiry. That is true. However, we have had the opportunity to learn a great deal since the beef tribunal. The most remarkable aspect of that tribunal for me — I appeared before it — was that it never made a single order for discovery.

Ever since the beef tribunal, up to and including today, we have had an opportunity to learn a great deal about public inquiries, their suitability, terms of reference, procedures, costs, reports and so on. From that point of view, I welcome the Bill. Just because tribunals have been inordinately expensive, this does not mean taxpayers, in their capacity as citizens, are not interested in ensuring that matters of public interest are properly inquired into. However, I am surprised at the extent to which the Minister's speech is almost entirely devoted to the costs issue.

The Minister said that the cost to the Exchequer of completed and sitting tribunals of inquiry and other public inquiries was €316.6 million. What did he include in that? Which inquiries are included? Did that amount start with the beef tribunal and does it go up to the present day? He said that of that sum, €228 million is in respect of legal costs. He goes on to say that with regard to tribunals which are yet to be completed and for which claims for costs remain to be settled, the total cost at end October is €211 million. Does that €211 million come on top of the €316 million? I am not sure. All I know is that the tribunals are inordinately expensive. Many people believe that the figures they read in the newspapers are the cost of the tribunals, but they are not. They are the cost of counsel for the State and related parties. They do not include third party costs, which in most cases will not be calculated until the end of the tribunals. Tribunals are expensive and it is incumbent on us to find a more efficient, speedy way to do our business.

I have not taken the course of commenting on the extraordinary appearances at the tribunal of the Taoiseach or on his Byzantine financial affairs. One does not have enough time here to go through that. In any event, we are saved that challenge by it being the task of the tribunal. I was, however, struck by the remarkable evidence last week of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Micheál Martin. I admired his chutzpah when he went in railing and ranting about the outrageous nature of the allegation that he was in receipt of a six figure sum, when he only received a five figure sum, albeit some of it for charitable purposes. The remainder was for his purposes, political purposes I presume. It then became apparent that the Minister had set up a meeting for the donor with Mr. Bertie Ahern, who was Minister for Finance at the time. Then we learned that the Minister for Finance had been in Los Angeles with the donor on business, which presumably was to the benefit of the State. We know fact No. 4, that the tribunal is of the opinion that a very large amount of dollars was lodged to an account of the Taoiseach's. There may be no connection between these four facts but, as an example of the most recent appearance before the tribunal, it shows that if we were to go back over the conflicting stories we have heard, we would be here all night.

It ought to be enough, if the Government was not so remote, out of touch and arrogant, that it would not introduce this Bill at this time. The Mahon tribunal is grinding to a halt — by that I mean it looks like continuing for another nine months in any event. Given that we have waited this long and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform insists that the Bill is not aimed at any existing tribunal, we can wait that bit longer. We have waited for ten years without taking action on spiralling tribunal costs. We saw it before our eyes, yet we had the hypocritical situation of the Minister of the day ranting and raving about costs while, in his other capacity, in his prior capacity as Attorney General, he had agreed an increase in fees for the lawyers concerned.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform will have to accept there is good cause this side of the House should be sceptical. We will have the opportunity to go into the detail of this on Committee Stage but I was struck by a number of things the Minister said in his contribution. I note that he has promised some additional amendments between now and Committee Stage. I wonder, given the freedom that chairpersons of tribunals have had up to now, what a prospective chairperson of a tribunal would say when asked by Government in future whether he or she would be prepared to chair a public inquiry. There is no doubt that it is far more of a strait-jacket into the future than it has been up to now. I am not complaining about that. I would like time to consider the balance involved but it certainly is very different.

I wish to point, in passing, to the Minister's script where he draws our attention to section 18 which requires a tribunal to carry out its functions as efficiently, effectively and expeditiously as is practicable having regard to its terms of reference. A tribunal is precluded from inquiring into a relevant matter unless it is satisfied that the cost and duration of that inquiry are likely to be justified by the importance of the facts that are likely to be established.

I am reminded, for example, of a decision of the Moriarty tribunal to inquire into the acquisition of Doncaster Rovers. The remarkable thing about that is that at the time this House established the Moriarty tribunal, the purchaser concerned had not even acquired Doncaster Rovers. Doncaster Rovers was only purchased after the tribunal was established so it could not have been in the minds of the Members of the Oireachtas that caused the tribunal to come into existence. Yet we find that quite some time has been devoted to inquiring into the acquisition of something that was not in the minds of the Members of this House when the tribunal was set up. There are many other examples throughout the Minister's script where questions can be raised about whether we have got the balance right. Nobody is disputing that we have to modernise the law in this regard. The year 1921 precedes the foundation of the State and that is a long time ago.

I am amused at the Minister's pointing out that costs were awarded for the engagement of public relations consultants by persons appearing before a tribunal. I remember that well. They were paid. The man retaining them was not short of staff at the time, yet the open-handed State paid a fortune to PR consultants to spin the story from the tribunal. It is remarkable when one thinks about it, it is an incredible waste of money. At least in that regard I am at one with the Minister that it is time to call a halt.

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