Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 1:

To delete paragraphs 4 to 7 and substitute the following:

shares the public concern about the potential costs of the tribunal and, having regard to the comments made by the former Minister for Finance, Deputy Charlie McCreevy, in which he described the legal fees as "astronomical" and "a gravy train", deplores the failure of the Government to take action to reduce the level of legal fees for tribunals generally;

urges the further postponement by the Oireachtas of the Tribunals of Inquiry Bill 2005, pending the completion of the work of the tribunal;

welcomes the opportunity to discuss the procedures and practices involved in investigating matters mandated by Oireachtas Éireann; and

condemns the leaking of tribunal documents by whatever parties or persons may be responsible as an infringement of the rights of those affected, notes the strong denial by the tribunal that it was responsible for any such leaks, and supports appropriate action to investigate such leaks, and further confirms the right to confidentiality to which each citizen is entitled in their correspondence with the tribunal.

The motion being debated by the House is very simple: "That Dáil Éireann reaffirms its confidence in the Mahon tribunal, and its belief that the tribunal is acting independently, without bias and within the remit contained in the terms of reference set by the Oireachtas." The Government has decided to submit an amendment deleting the reference to the tribunal's acting independently and to the House's belief that the tribunal is acting without bias. The Labour Party has proposed an amendment to the Government amendment.

The Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, had a lot to say about motives and ascribed motives to the proposers of the motion. He talked about the costs of the tribunal and its procedures and method of operation. What I find remarkable about the contribution of the Minister and those of many Ministers in the past couple of months is that they have only belatedly become concerned about costs. The costs of the tribunal were agreed and the legal fees were set by the Government. The Government intended to reduce the legal fees of the tribunals and the then Minister for Finance, former Deputy McCreevy, announced a new and reduced set of legal fees as far back as 2004, but the Government of which the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, is a member decided to ditch that and continue the existing scale of legal fees. It is cant and hypocrisy for Ministers to start belly-aching now about the cost of the tribunals when they agreed the legal fees.

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