Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has raised an important matter. It gives me the opportunity to remind the House that the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments, known as the Mahon tribunal, was, as the Deputy said, established in November 1997 to investigate allegations of corrupt payments to politicians in respect of planning permissions and land zonings in the Dublin area in the 1990s.

The public hearings relating to the tribunal investigations, which involved 589 days of public hearings and evidence from 427 witnesses, continued until 2008, as the Deputy said, with the final report being published in March 2012. The stark reality is that the tribunal opened our eyes to occurrences in the planning system which are indefensible and which will, it is to be hoped, not be encountered again.

During the course of its deliberations, the tribunal published four interim reports, with the first published in 2002, before, as indicated, the publication of its final report in 2012. Court challenges relating to the withholding or redacting of certain information in witness statements, as well as against certain findings in the interim reports relating to hindrance and obstruction by certain individuals, were initiated by certain parties at various times during this period. Subsequent Supreme Court judgments found against the practice of redacting witness statements, and also against the non co-operation and hindrance findings against specific individuals in some instances.

This has now resulted in certain corruption findings against certain parties being withdrawn from the second and third interim reports. These judgments have also resulted in specific parties now being entitled to legal costs which had previously been refused, with the vast majority of the concerned parties now being awarded their full costs. Contrary to recent media reports, it is not the case that the second and third interim reports have been withdrawn in their entirety; certain adverse findings remain in place. It should also be noted that no findings in the tribunal's final report and recommendations are affected by these Supreme Court decisions.

The tribunal estimated in 2014 that the total costs of its deliberations would amount to approximately €159 million. This figure was calculated on the basis that all parties would receive all of their costs. The recent findings of the Supreme Court regarding George Redmond will not, therefore, have any effect on this estimate.

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