Analysis:The Quarryvale hearings were unlikely to take place in the run-up to an election, writes Paul Cullen
It took just 30 seconds for Judge Alan Mahon to tell a roomful of lawyers and media yesterday that the planning tribunal would not be sitting for another month, until after the election.
Judge Mahon's decision had the appearance of a last-minute adjournment, but in reality there was never any possibility of public hearings into Quarryvale taking place in the run-up to a general election.
The inquiry has never shown an appetite for continuing its business during election campaigns and the political establishment certainly doesn't want to hear from it just as they are about to put themselves before the electorate.
The main parties have ensured that corruption was off the menu of issues in previous elections and, after a bit of fuss over the coming days, they will hope to apply the same rule this time around.
Too many skeletons are rattling in too many cupboards for most politicians to feel comfortable defending their record on the issue.
Not even the prospect of having Bertie Ahern on the defensive over allegations about his personal finances in the middle of an election campaign looks like encouraging Fine Gael to leave behind its historical reluctance to tackle the issue directly.
Politicians are frequently accused of trying to shut the tribunal down, but this is inaccurate; what many of them would prefer is for the inquiry to go away. Happily for them, the tribunal has often obliged, by taking years to carry out investigations, delivering reports long after the figures under investigation have retired, failing to hold hearings when elections are called and getting bogged down in complex and seemingly pointless side-issues. As a result, its political effect has been neutralised and public interest has tailed off.
So far this year, the tribunal has sat in public for just 10 days. Thanks to its deal with the Government last month, the details of which have never been explained, tribunal lawyers will continue to earn up to € 2,250 a day even when it is not sitting. Yesterday's brief hearing alone, which could have been cancelled with a few calls to newsrooms and solicitors' offices, will end up costing the taxpayer over € 50,000 in legal fees.
Much of the delay has been caused by circumstances beyond its control, it has to be said, and this is true of the Quarryvale module. Property developer Owen O'Callaghan, a major Fianna Fáil benefactor who ultimately developed the site as Liffey Valley shopping centre, challenged the tribunal in the High and Supreme Courts, and suddenly over a year had passed.
When his case was finally dismissed and it seemed that the Quarryvale hearings would finally start, up stepped Hazel Lawlor, widow of Liam, to drag the tribunal through the courts. Her call for the resumption of the Quarryvale module to be adjourned was dismissed only last Friday, and again it seemed the hearings would have to start.
Yet within a day of the Lawlor judgment, the decision had been made to go to the country. It is hard not to come to the conclusion that the prospect of tribunal hearings in which he would feature prominently drove Bertie Ahern to the decision to call an election.