There is little chance we will ever see another parliamentary inquiry like the Public Accounts Committee's investigation into DIRT tax evasion.
Mr Kieran Coughlan, Clerk of the Dail, has told the PAC it would be very difficult to repeat such an exercise given the resources involved.
The five-member subcommittee openly admitted they wouldn't have been able to get through the workload themselves if the Dail had been sitting during the inquiry.
A report by the Department of Finance has shown that, notwithstanding the massive re sources and time commitment involved, the DIRT inquiry was by far the cheapest and shortest investigation undertaken by the State.
The report shows the PAC cost £1.1 million and has so far triggered the collection of £173 million in unpaid tax for the Exchequer.
This compares with total costs of £18.5 million for the beef tribunal, which is expected to rise to over £20 million when all costs have been discharged.
The Dunnes payments tribunal has cost £5.2 million.
The Flood tribunal has racked up costs of £8.2 million and the Lindsay tribunal has so far cost £4 million, with the bulk of these costs made up of legal fees.
The Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, suggested that anyone sitting on a barstool could rightly conclude that parliamentary inquiries were a lot cheaper than tribunals.
But he warned that it would be simplistic to conclude that inquiries by politicians should now be universally embraced.
"The DIRT inquiry shows it can be done in a different way but that doesn't mean it can be transferred holus-bolus to a whole range of matters," he told the committee.
The former barrister pointed out that a cross-party Dail committee couldn't have replaced the beef, Flood or Dunnes payments tribunals given the political implications of their findings.
He also suggested that much of the evidence which has come out in the Lindsay tribunal would not have surfaced in a political arena.
"Inquiries are expensive," he explained.
And he reminded the legislators that rather than complain about the length of many tribunals they should remember that they were the people who set their terms of reference.
He favours an appraisal of tribunals and a separate evaluation of the DIRT inquiry to come up with proposals which may speed up tribunals and reduce their cost to the taxpayer.
But he says he has "no magic wand" in terms of legislative proposals in that regard.
The PAC chairman, Mr Jim Mitchell, also favours an independent evaluation of the DIRT inquiry and other tribunals, highlighting initiatives such as the Comptroller and Auditor General's initial investigation into DIRT tax evasion ahead of the hearings.
Live coverage of the proceedings on television and radio will also bring benefits to the public, he believes.
Over two more days, Mr Mitchell and his team will ask the Revenue Commissioners for further details of the DIRT settlements and its experience during the look-back audits at the State's financial institutions.
The banks' chairmen and chief executives will also have to impress the committee with the steps they have taken to ensure massive tax evasion will not happen again.
As a first step, the Irish Bankers' Federation yesterday issued a code of ethics for the industry which will be policed by the Central Bank.