A senior counsel at one of the current tribunals earned more in 3½ days than an old-age pensioner received for a year, the Minister for Finance told the House.
Mr McCreevy said that the cost of current tribunals and public inquiries to the end of last October was €101 million, of which €68 million related to legal costs.
"The latter only refers to the costs of the tribunal of inquiry legal teams as the issue of third-party costs has not yet been adjudicated on in any instance."
He repeated his commitment, given at the Fianna Fáil ardfheis, that he would bring proposals to Government in the near future, "which I hope will go some way to relieving the taxpayer of these considerable costs".
However, under pressure from the Fine Gael spokesman on finance, Mr Richard Bruton, the Minister did not disclose what the proposals would be.
"Is it not the case you have done nothing but increase the fees time after time? You have done nothing to address the ridiculous anomaly of daily rates for work which should be clearly done on a contract basis. We are going to face enormous fee increases, because you have not learned the lesson from the huge spiralling costs of these tribunals."
Mr McCreevy said that he was sure Fine Gael would support his proposals when he brought them before the Oireachtas.
Different daily rates, he added, were paid to counsel working on the various tribunals.
In the Moriarty tribunal, senior counsel were on the per diem rate of €2,500; in the Morris, Barr and planning tribunals, the equivalent figure was €2,250; and in the Laffoy and Dunne tribunals, it was €1,905. The brief fees, he added, were: Moriarty tribunal, €31,743; planning tribunal, €31,743; Laffoy, €34,918; Dunne, €31,743; Morris and Barr, €60,000.
Earlier, Mr Bruton claimed the Minister's proposals related only to future tribunals.
He asked if Mr McCreevy was Minister when sanction was given to increase the brief fee from €20,000 to €60,000, an increase of over 200 per cent, and when the fee for non-sitting days increased from €1,270 to €2,250 per day.
"How does he square his sanctioning of these increases, comparing the McCracken tribunal with most recent tribunals, to barristers with his alleged concern at the Fianna Fáil ardfheis to contain the cost of tribunals?
"Mr McCreevy said that the Minister of the day sanctioned the fees at appropriate times following consideration by the Office of the Attorney General regarding the going rate at a particular time."
