Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

On the Taoiseach's statement that the tribunals were established by the Oireachtas and that the Oireachtas always has options open to it, does he recall that when the Moriarty tribunal had been established for a short while, an issue arose over an alleged payment made to former Minister Ray Burke? This side of the House proposed that Mr. Justice Moriarty be allowed to have another module to investigate the allegation. The then Government, led by the Taoiseach's predecessor, rejected that proposal and insisted instead on setting up a separate tribunal to examine all planning matters. It turned out that there was some irony in this decision. Regardless of what the tribunals have discovered, it might have been less costly had the Burke allegation been investigated by way of a separate module of the Moriarty tribunal, as originally proposed on this side of the House.

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