John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

At that time, the Government also approved the provision of additional resources to the tribunal and a significant increase in the size of its internal legal team.

Earlier, in July 2004, the Government decided on a new reduced scale of fees for new and existing tribunals' legal teams. Following discussion between the Attorney General and the planning tribunal, it was agreed that, with the benefit of the changed terms of reference, the tribunal would seek to complete its work by end-March 2007. It was agreed that the revised fee rates would apply to its legal team in respect of any subsequent period.

In anticipation of the March 2007 deadline, the chairman of the tribunal wrote in December 2006 to my predecessor, Deputy Dick Roche, to the effect that the tribunal's public hearings would not be completed by 31 March 2007, principally due to a number of legal challenges which had delayed its work. The chairman anticipated that public hearings for the remaining modules which the tribunal intended to conduct would extend until the end of 2007 and possibly into the first months of 2008. He requested that existing funding arrangements and fee scales would continue to apply for 2007.

See this speech in context