Tralee solicitor Mr Donal Spring yesterday succeeded in increasing from £320,000 to £485,000 his instruction fees for representing his brother, former Tanaiste and Labour Party leader Mr Dick Spring, and former Labour Party MEP Mr Barry Desmond at the Beef Tribunal.
But a Taxing Master of the High Court, Master James Flynn, said he still believed the work rendered by Mr Spring in respect of the tribunal was "relatively shallow in both exertion and effort" compared with others who participated in the inquiry.
The original bill submitted by Mr Spring was £785,000. This was more than halved last July by Master Flynn when he granted fees of £320,000. Objections were made to that decision and Master Flynn reserved judgment to yesterday. The Beef Tribunal, chaired by the current Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, inquired into allegations of illegal activities, fraud and malpractice in, and in connection with, the beef processing industry. It sat from 1991 to 1993. In July last year, Master Flynn, when fixing the instruction fees at £320,000, said he was "reluctantly" fixing that figure - and only because the State had indicated it was prepared to pay that amount.
Yesterday, the Master said that, after hearing objections to his original ruling, he was now fixing the instruction fee for Mr Donal Spring at £485,000. The increased fee included an increase for "intangibles" from £130,000 to £200,000.
Dealing with another issue to which objections had been raised, Master Flynn said that he was of the view that refresher (daily) fees for senior counsel for Messrs Spring and Desmond, which he had assessed at £750 a day in July 1998, should now be increased to 1,800 guineas per day for 84 days at the tribunal. (A guinea is worth one pound and five pence)
Junior counsel refresher fees, which he had fixed at £500 per day, should now be assessed at the rate of 1,200 guineas per day in respect of 153 days.
Master Flynn said the refresher fees paid to the applicants' counsel should be on a par to those paid to the State's counsel. He accepted he had been "somewhat inaccurate" in his consideration of the work undertaken in respect of which refresher fees for counsel were charged.