The Government's decision not to implement a planned reduction in the fees paid to lawyers at the Mahon tribunal was strongly criticised yesterday by the Labour Party. The cuts were due to come into effect at the end of this week.
The fees for senior counsel at the tribunal were due to be reduced from €2,500 a day to €950 a day but after detailed negotiations with the tribunal, the Government decided to defer the implementation of the new fees schedule until agreement could be reached.
The Labour Party's spokesman on the environment, Eamon Gilmore TD, accused the Government of totally reneging on its commitment to reduce the cost of the Mahon tribunal following the decision to postpone indefinitely reductions in the legal fees.
"The Government has performed a major U-turn in its commitment to reduce tribunal costs by cutting fees to lawyers at the Mahon tribunal. Not only have they ignored their own commitment to do so by the end of this month, they have also failed to set a new deadline by which lawyer's fees will be reduced.
"In particular, Tánaiste Michael McDowell must account for this U-turn. He was the one who indulged in an unseemly row with the tribunal earlier this year, stating that its potential final cost could exceed €1 billion," said Mr Gilmore.
He said Mr McDowell has allowed the tribunal to continue on an open-ended basis with any future decision about legal fees kicked-to-touch until after the general election. "It is now apparent that a new government will have to deal with this issue once and for all and take the decision to reduce the fees paid to tribunal lawyers.
"Over the last few months the Government has been all over the place on this important matter and rather than find positive and constructive methods to improve the work of the tribunal has merely let it move from crisis to crisis," he said.
