Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I have two points to make. First, as I recall it, the McCracken tribunal made adverse findings and it did not beat about the bush in making these and submitting them to the Dáil. In its earlier reports, the Flood tribunal made adverse findings about people. I do not understand why the procedure the Taoiseach has outlined is being followed so rigorously in the case of the Moriarty tribunal and why it cannot submit a report to the House. It is not a report for the courts, it is a report to the House. It was the Oireachtas that established the Moriarty tribunal and it is to the Oireachtas that it reports. I do not understand why it cannot submit that report without the prolonged process the Taoiseach has described.

Second, it is laughable for the Taoiseach to suggest to the House that the reason the fees of tribunal lawyers have not been reduced was that he was afraid to do so because of what Deputy Kenny or I might say about it. That is nonsense. The same is true of his suggestion that it could not be done in case tribunal lawyers might up and leave the tribunal. There has been a pretty big turnover of tribunal lawyers at both tribunals over the years. The Government did make a number of decisions that the fees of tribunal lawyers would be reduced.

Whatever about paying the lawyers who work on the tribunal itself, the big bill here will be the third party costs when they come to be awarded. Does the Taoiseach expect that those third party costs will be awarded on the same basis and the same level of fees as has been paid to the lawyers who have been working for the tribunal itself?

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