Seanad debates

Tuesday, 19 July 2011

2:30 pm

Photo of Colm BurkeColm Burke (Fine Gael)

Last week a judge of the Supreme Court made strongly critical comments about modern tribunals, describing their powers are "truly awesome", their expense "enormous", the cost of participating in them "grotesque" and the duration of some "nothing else than appalling". The comments were made in the context of an application by the Director of Corporate Enforcement to take certain actions in respect of individuals who had appeared before a tribunal in the past. Concerns in this regard go back to 1992 when Mr. Justice Finlay found that tribunal reports were sterile of legal effect. Despite this caution, we have had several tribunals in the following 20 years, at enormous expense to the State, and now find ourselves apparently powerless to act on some of the findings of those tribunals.

Will the Leader invite the Minister for Justice and Equality to the House to discuss this matter? How do we deal with matters like these, which for some reason, cannot be addressed within the current courts structure? Are changes required to that structure to deal with such matters without recourse to tribunals of inquiry? Tribunals have not worked, will not work and cannot work.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.