Madam, - Paul Cullen's critique of the fees paid to lawyers engaged in our tribunals of inquiry has some merit (Opinion, July 28th). However, it could, I fear, be carried too far, ultimately to the detriment of the new openness in Irish public life.
We need to remember that working in tribunals has itself been a learning process even for the professionals. A substantial body of specialist expertise on how tribunals should be conducted and how they should report has been built up. We should not discard this lightly.
There was a time when a government or a majority in the Dáil would have been perfectly happy for a tribunal report to consist of a big fat book, with no index and with no discernible findings of wrongdoing by individuals.
However, since the beef tribunal, the legal professionals have shown clear evidence of having learned from experience. Reports nowadays seem to be shorter, more conspicuously incisive and more declaratory of responsibility for wrongdoing. This must be due at least in part to a decade of apprenticeship by the profession in Dublin Castle and elsewhere.
We could, of course, dispense with the more expensive services of specialist tribunal personnel, and replace them with cheaper, less experienced counsel. But in saving some refresher fees, would we not almost certainly get a far inferior outcome? - Yours, etc.,
HUGO BRADY BROWN, Stratford on Slaney, Co Wicklow.