The Government will not interfere with the work of the various tribunals, Minister for Social and Family Affairs Séamus Brennan assured the Dáil.
"No legislation is proposed by the Government to in any way interfere with the work of this [Mahon] or any other tribunal," he said. Mr Brennan, who was taking the Order of Business, had been challenged by the Opposition to clarify alleged differences between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Tánaiste Michael McDowell about closing down the Mahon tribunal. Mr Brennan said the Taoiseach had earlier stated that he agreed with Mr McDowell's comments on Wednesday that the issue of legal fees for the tribunals needed to be addressed.
"Nobody in this House would privately or publicly disagree with that. Both the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach made the point that the public needs to understand the vast sums of taxpayers' money going to fund the tribunal." He added that neither the Taoiseach nor the Tánaiste made any apology for bringing that to public attention.
"The Taoiseach made it clear this morning and the Tánaiste said it yesterday. Both of them said the tribunals have a very important job to do and that the tribunals would do their job to completion.
"They are both strongly of that view. They both said, time and again, that a great deal of money has gone into the tribunals."
Pressed further by the Opposition, Mr Brennan said that no decision had been taken by the Government regarding legal fees at the Mahon tribunal. He added that the matter was still under consideration between the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, and the tribunal.
Fine Gael's justice spokesman, Jim O'Keeffe, said that a decision was made in 2003 relating to legal fees. Mr Brennan said the House would be aware that when the tribunal was contacted in 2004, it had indicated that its work would be completed by March of this year. "On that basis, the then current rates continued to apply to counsel for the tribunal, up to and including that date."
Mr Brennan said that in 2001, when three additional judges were appointed to the tribunal, it was expected that it would sit in individual divisions. But the tribunal had found itself unable to organise divisional sittings and, therefore, it did not happen.
Ruairí Quinn (Labour, Dublin South East) remarked: "Is there no end to the incompetence? It is unbelievable."
Mr Brennan said that the new schedule of lower fees had been applied to the Barr, MacEntee and Smithwick tribunals.
Earlier, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said that Mr McDowell was doing the Taoiseach's "dirty work" relating to the tribunal.
"We have good cop, bad cop, with the Minister for the Environment saying the tribunals should be closed down, while the Taoiseach says they should go ahead. This is contemptuous treatment of Dáil Éireann." Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said he had always believed the Oireachtas could not stop a tribunal module which had already commenced.
Joe Higgins (Socialist Party, Dublin West) said it had become clear for many years that not just the Mahon tribunal, but also other tribunals, were making far more new millionaires than there were old millionaires being investigated. "What we had yesterday from the Tánaiste in particular, and also from the Taoiseach, is an exercise in the most monumental hypocrisy."
