Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Taoiseach makes it sound like the tribunals decide what they will be paid. Will he confirm that it is the Government, specifically the Attorney General, which agrees the scale of fees with the lawyers at the various tribunals? I will return to the Mahon tribunal. In 2004, the then Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, described the scales of fees then applying as astronomical and said that the gravy train had gone on long enough. He announced new scales of fees which would apply specifically to the Mahon tribunal and, I think, to the Moriarty tribunal at that stage. There were various stages by which these scales of fees were supposed to come into effect, for example, the autumn of 2004 and February and September of 2006.

On each occasion that these new scales of fees were supposed to come into effect, the Government changed it and allowed the existing fees to continue. It is the height of hypocrisy for Ministers to bellyache, which they have done for the past number of months now, about the fees paid to lawyers at the Mahon tribunal when the Government set those fees. Will the Taoiseach confirm to the House that the legal fees being paid to lawyers at the various tribunals were set and approved by the Government?

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