A senior lawyer has criticised legislators for failing to update comprehensively a 78-year-old Act which he argued provides the legislative framework for tribunals of inquiry.
Mr Eamonn Leahy SC also challenged what he called "the uncharacteristic silence emanating from Leinster House". And he criticised "a substantial" section of the press for its coverage of the current tribunals.
He was addressing over 200 delegates at the weekend spring conference of the Society of Young Solicitors of Ireland.
Mr Leahy said that it was his view that the 1921 Act, as amended, did not adequately and efficiently provide a mechanism for discharging the twofold legislative purpose of tribunals of inquiry.
Mr Leahy is one of the lawyers representing Mr Michael and Mr Thomas Bailey and their company, Bovale Developments, at the current Flood tribunal.
He said that the power under which tribunals were conducted was a "hurried" 1921 Act which was "a statute set in legislative jelly".
"The courts," he said, "being temporarily exhausted by tribunal-induced litigation, passed the baton back to the Oireachtas who enacted the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence Amendment) Act, 1997."
The Oireachtas on four separate occasions passed minor Acts which "made meek amendments of the 1921 Act". Why they "shied away from a comprehensive review and updating [of the Act] is altogether unclear".
Mr Leahy said it was now accepted that the Oireachtas had an inherent power to initiate inquiries under the 1921 Act.
"Why is it," he asked, "that so little legislative thought has been devoted to it over the past three-quarters of a century? Why is it that a power which should properly be provided for by a modern, well-considered statute has been all but ignored by the Oireachtas?"
He said that even if the legislative origins, powers and procedures of tribunals of inquiry were somewhat obscure, their purpose was clear. They were intended to restore public confidence arising out of some matter of definite public importance and to report to the Oireachtas and make recommendations.
He said it was accepted that tribunals had an important non-legal function. "They are there to provide the machinery, wholly independent of the political process, whereby matters of grave public concern may be investigated and the true facts brought to light.
"Given their cost, duration and frequent unpopularity, it is not inappropriate that any review this decade should pose the question: why establish a tribunal?"
The academic answer was, he said, that "an inquiry of this kind is a procedure of last resort, to be used when nothing else will serve to allay public disquiet, usually based on sensational allegations, rumours or disasters".
The press ought to be the essential conduit which carried the work of a tribunal to the people.
"Some journalists have distinguished themselves in their fair and balanced coverage of the workings of often complex tribunals. Others have done little to bring distinction to their profession."
Still others, he said, had turned the workings of various tribunals into "a class of State-sponsored Game for a Laugh".
The behaviour of substantial sections of the press at tribunals was, he believed, "the greatest argument possible" for the retention of the libel laws in an unmodified fashion.