Senator urges curb on 'alarming' tribunal costs to taxpayers

SEANAD REPORT:THE TIME had come to put a stop to alarming tribunal costs, Jim Walsh (FF) told the House.

Noting that Fine Gael's Paul Bradford had made clear the need for ethics and morality in both public life and corporate governance, Mr Walsh said he thought the Seanad could do worse than to start a strong campaign in that regard. The abuse of privilege in many sectors of our economy was very stark, he said. The Irish Timeshad reported last Tuesday that sums ranging from €993,729 to €842,840 had been paid in the year to last February to three members of the Moriarty tribunal "which now seems to be in a serious state, as far as we are concerned".

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, who had the two most responsible and challenging positions in our society, got less than a quarter of what those tribunal personnel had been paid.

“It’s unconscionable. It’s an absolute scandal.” Mr Walsh said he had raised this matter in the past.

He added he was seeking the guidance of the Chair as to how the Moriarty tribunal could be discussed without getting into some difficulties. He thought the time had come for the Houses to have a debate on bodies they had set up “which 12 or 13 years later are still dealing with issues which should have been finalised, I would say, a decade ago.” A stop needed to be put to the alarming level of cost to the taxpayers.

The House should be given an opportunity to debate a motion that had been on the order paper since last June.

The motion to which Mr Walsh referred is in the names of 10 Fianna Fáil and Independent members and asks the Seanad to call on the Government to introduce a maximum fees order of not more than €969 daily for senior counsel and €646 for junior counsel.

Mr Walsh said the leader of the Seanad should bring the motion to the floor of the House or tell members who was obstructing debate on it. “If we are serious about tackling the abuse of privilege, we have got to start in this area.”

Seanad leader Donie Cassidy said he wanted to assure Mr Walsh that there was no agenda whatsoever in not taking the motion now. “I will endeavour to see how this can be facilitated.”

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern revealed that while holding another portfolio he had been threatened with court action by the Data Protection Commissioner for giving out too much information under Freedom of Information (FOI) provisions.

Mr Ahern, who was responding to a call by Ivana Bacik (Lab) for the publication of house price data on an openly available register, said he could go down in history as the only minister on whom the Data Protection Commissioner had served a 20-day notice because he was giving too much information under the FOI in his department.

A settlement had ultimately been agreed, but the Data Protection Commissioner “was going to take me as minister to the Circuit Court on the basis that I was infringing data protection”.

Mr Ahern said he disagreed with any suggestion that he or the Government were interested in curtailing freedom of information.