The Department of Finance complained about the level of fees being paid to members of the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (ICSTI), according to documents seen by The Irish Times.

The Department also expressed concern that no prior approval was sought for fees paid to the ICSTI and to a commission the council set up, the ICSTI Commission.

The concern was expressed by an official from the Personnel and Remuneration Division of the Department of Finance in an email to an official in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

"We are concerned at the high level of fee approved in relation to ICSTI. In particular, the level of [per diem\] fee approved for the ICSTI Commission exceeds that normally paid for such activities. Moreover, it would not be unusual for per diem fees to be capped at an overall annual amount," the official said.

The ICSTI was established by Forfás to advise the Government on science, technology and innovation policy. It established a commission under the chairmanship of Dr Edward Walsh in 2002 to produce a report to government. The report was submitted last year but has not yet been published.

Documents released following a Freedom of Information Act request show that the fee for members of the commission was €1,000 per meeting and that the Department of Finance was unhappy with this arrangement.

"As previously indicated, we are not satisfied that the commission can be regarded as being analogous to consultants or advisers, and so would have expected that this Department's sanction would have been sought," the official said in the email.

The documents show that members of the board of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), a related body, were paid €10,157 in 2002 and the chairman was paid €15,236. The ICSTI chairman and its members were paid a fee of €10,157 each.

In 2002, Dr Edward Walsh was chairman of the ICSTI commission, a member of the board of SFI, and a member of the board of ICSTI. Restrictions in the guidelines on the payment of fees to the chairpersons and directors of boards of State bodies governed the payment of fees to persons involved in different boards that belong to the same State body.

An issue arose as to whether the three payments could be made to Dr Walsh and in the event he was paid no fee arising from his chairmanship of the ICSTI commission.

A number of respected figures from abroad agreed to join the commission, as did a number of well-respected Irish figures, the Department of Finance was told by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment during the communications concerning the issue of fees.

"In the search to seek the involvement of some of the overseas experts, it became clear to Forfás that in certain cases an honorarium of an appropriate amount would be expected," the Department of Finance was told.

"It was therefore decided by the Forfás executive that an honorarium of €1,000 net per meeting after tax should be paid to those members of the commission who were not public servants."

The commission's task was more in the nature of a short-term project and it was normal for the industrial development agencies to engage consultants or advisers, the official said.

An official from Finance contested the view that the members of the commission were akin to consultants. "I do not agree that they can be regarded as consultants. The commission looks just like the sort of review group or task force that ministers regularly establish, often without the members receiving remuneration," the official noted.