The scandal of the massive legal fees for the planning tribunal is still exceeded by the scandal of the corruption it can expose, writes Paul Cullen
Right message, wrong man to deliver it. After 10 years, Michael McDowell has just woken up to the mother of all cost over-runs and wants us to believe his freshly-minted concerns about the planning tribunal have nothing to do with the forthcoming election.
The issue of legal costs at the planning tribunal and other inquiries is a scandal, make no mistake about it.
There may be circumstances under which a person is worth a salary of €2,500 a day but these should always be very limited.
At the tribunal, in contrast, the bonanza of legal representation has been thrown around like confetti at a wedding. All the Government's fine talk about reducing lawyers' fees and refusing to grant costs to certain parties has been just that - fine talk.
Charlie McCreevy trumpeted his scheme to cut the daily rates paid to barristers in 2004, then hightailed it to Brussels before the inevitable unravelling. Costs have been withheld from just a fraction of the hundreds of witnesses who have appeared before the tribunal and, in my opinion as a long-time observer of the proceedings, just a fraction of those who deserved to have their costs withheld.
Meanwhile, we have yet to hear of the tribunal imposing its costs on parties whose foot-dragging or plain dishonesty caused lengthy delays.
It's worth remembering that the taxpayer is still paying for fresh legal bills at the beef tribunal, 14 years after it ended.
Other tribunals have shown that third-party legal costs exceed the actual costs of running an inquiry by a multiple. For the planning tribunal, which has been complex and sprawling and has involved repeated visits to the courts, this multiple was always going to be higher - perhaps as much as 10.
With costs at the as yet unfinished inquiry currently topping €50 million, it's easy to see how the eventual bill will come to hundreds of millions of euro, not too far off Mr McDowell's €1 billion estimate.
So where's the surprise? And why is the Government that set up the tribunal in 1997, which appointed Mr Justice Feargus Flood as chairman and his three successors, which failed to devise alternative means of investigating corruption such as the proposed Corruption Assets Bureau, and which has done nothing effective to stem costs now, suddenly, alarmed at costs spiralling under its nose?
Next month, when lawyers' fees were supposedly going to drop to the lower McCreevy rate, was always going to be the day of reckoning for the inquiry, but nothing seems to have been done until now, weeks before the deadline.
There was never any chance that it would have finished its work by March, and there is even less chance of the present staff voluntarily taking a 60 per cent pay cut from one day to the next - would you?
Besides,, the Morris and Moriarty tribunals have been granted extensions at existing rates of pay until the end of their work.
Yet the Morris and Moriarty tribunals have never irritated the political establishment in the way that the planning tribunal has.
Beneath the emollient language, many in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael hate this tribunal, and even some in Labour are less enthusiastic than might be expected. It isn't hard to understand why given the roasting figures such as Ray Burke, Liam Lawlor or Liam Cosgrave have received in Dublin Castle.
However, the politicians have neutralised most of the damage the tribunal could inflict on them. Burke, Lawlor et al were political history by the time the slow-moving inquiry sank its teeth into them. For the rest, the public was told to wait for the final verdict of the tribunal - whenever that was going to appear.
Corruption curiously failed to make it as an issue in the last election campaign and there are few signs that anyone wants to put it on the agenda for the coming battle.
Yet the inquiry can still convulse politicians with fear, particularly in the run-up to an election. It may be the sheer unpredictability of proceedings, or it may be something altogether more profound that we have yet to hear about.
The long-delayed hearings into the rezoning of Quarryvale, due in a few weeks' time, will throw a deeply unfavourable light on the behaviour of councillors during one of the most shameful episodes in Dublin planning. It will also provide Bertie Ahern with another unwelcome visit to the witness box in Dublin Castle.
This can hardly have been far from the Tánaiste's mind when he made his comments today.
Mr McDowell also knows how deeply unpopular the tribunals are with the public, so he may have found a new populist cause to match his emphasis on crime and bigger pensions.
He also knows that the €1 billion is, if not spent, allocated, so it is disingenuous to suggest that this money is available to build hospitals or prisons.
So should the inquiry be shut down?
It wouldn't have gone on too long if there wasn't so much corruption out there and if it hadn't had to face down so many legal challenges.
The scandal of massive legal fees is, on balance, still exceeded by the scandal of planning corruption, and it isn't good enough for Mr McDowell to suggest it's enough to know "the jist" of this.
Ultimately, though, only the tribunal knows just how serious the allegations are, and it should be given the freedom to state which matters it wants to investigate.