Eugene Regan (Fine Gael)

That is where the responsibility for those fees and the cost of the tribunals lies.

I accepted last week that the Leader was perhaps unable to offer an unqualified assurance that the new proposals would not be used to close down the tribunals already sitting, especially the Mahon tribunal. In the Dáil last week, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform made a somewhat qualified statement on the import of these proposals when he spoke of completion timescales. Meanwhile, the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, is of the view that the Mahon tribunal is acting illegally and outside its terms of reference.