Labour has expressed concern about Government plans to allow itself dissolve tribunals in the future, so long as it gets prior Oireachtas approval.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said yesterday the Cabinet had approved "the urgent drafting of a comprehensive Bill to consolidate and reform the legislation relating to tribunals of inquiry".
The Bill is a further response to the escalating length and cost of some tribunals, notably the Moriarty and Mahon tribunals which are in their eighth year.
The Bill will clarify the process that sets a tribunal’s terms of reference, and will allow the tribunal chairman a major role in this. It will oblige tribunals to produce a statement of estimated costs and duration within three months of being set up; end the time-consuming practice of reading lengthy and undisputed written evidence into the record; clarify who should get legal representation; and allow the responsible minister to request an interim report.
The Bill will also propose to allow tribunal reports to be admitted as evidence in civil cases. It will set the maximum legal cost that can be recovered by those before a tribunal.
The most contentious element is the proposal to allow the Government wind up tribunals, as long as it has the approval of both Houses of the Oireachtas.
"We cannot be blind to the increasing concerns that have been raised in many quarters as to the length of time it is taking for some of the inquiries to conclude their investigations and to report," Mr McDowell said yesterday. "Significant costs have arisen in regard to tribunals," he said. "Up to the end of 2004 in excess of €190 million had been incurred in relation to completed and sitting inquiries, of which almost €140 million related to legal costs." He believed the Bill would "enhance the interests of justice and public accountability".
However, Labour’s justice spokesman, Eamon Gilmore, said he believed the proposal would give the Government too much power over tribunals. It would be the Government, rather than the Oireachtas, that would initiate a move to wind up a tribunal. That was wrong, he said.
He also expressed surprise that there had been no discussion with his party on these proposals in advance of the Cabinet decision to prepare a Bill.
"Changes in the law governing tribunals are generally done on an agreed basis," he said.