THERE ARE enormous differences in the earnings of the 35 different members of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, with some earning nothing and others earning well over €100,000,
The Irish Timeshas learned.
The tribunal paid €1,236,793 in fees in 2008, according to its annual report published last week.
A breakdown of the fees, which has since been obtained, shows that the top earner, Michelle O'Gorman, earned €180,097 last year.
This represents about 14 per cent of all fees paid.
Two members, Seán Bellew and Joseph Barnes, did not do any work for the tribunal, earning nothing, while the lowest earner was Brendan Gogarty, who made €952.
Other high earners included Ben Garvey, who earned €113,528, Bernard McCabe, who earned €119,007, Elizabeth O'Brien, who earned €103,408, David Andrews, who earned €86,970, Margaret Levey with €88,259 and Olive Brennan with €82,737.
In previous years, the highest earner from the tribunal was James Nicholson, who earned €780,000 over a five-year period. He resigned from the tribunal last year when a case was brought to the High Court by three asylum seekers alleging perceived bias by him.
In this case, known as the Nyembo case, the Supreme Court had cleared the way for the High Court to examine records and statistics showing the outcome of the cases dealt with by various members of the tribunal.
The case was settled by the tribunal with the three asylum seekers before the relevant documents were discovered, and Mr Nicholson resigned.
In March last year, while the case was pending, three members of the tribunal, former DPP Éamon Barnes, Donal Egan and former government minister Michael O'Kennedy, sought to intervene in it, challenging a statement of its chairman, John Ryan, to the court describing how the tribunal was run. Because the case was settled, they never made their submissions.
According to the 2008 figures, some members of the tribunal earned €10,000 or less last year, with Mr Egan earning €10,408, Mr Barnes earning €8,357 and Seán Deegan earning €8,106. Mr O'Kennedy was not listed as a member last year.
Fees for cases range from €575 for an oral hearing to €165 where the case is withdrawn, with cases decided on papers only costing €300.
The 35 members of the tribunal are appointed by the Minister for Justice and must be either a solicitor or barrister of at least five years' standing.
Payment on a fee-per-case basis makes the Refugee Appeals Tribunal different from other tribunals, such as the Employment Appeals Tribunal, where those sitting are paid by the day, or the Equality Tribunal, which is staffed by civil servants.
Some practitioners argue that this system encourages volume at the expense of rigour. There has also been criticism from within the tribunal itself of its chairman on the grounds that he did not reveal the basis on which cases were allocated or release any statistics on the records of individual members or on the general trend in decisions.
Asked in 2006 about the basis on which work was allocated, Mr Ryan said there were issues of "unavailability" of members.
There has been widespread concern in the legal community about the absence of statistics on decisions by different members, the number of judicial reviews taken against particular members and the vastly different amounts of money earned by the members.
Under the new Immigration Residence and Protection Bill the chairman of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal automatically becomes chairman of the new Protection Review Tribunal when the current tribunal is wound up.