Doing nothing on tribunal fees suits the lawyers and the Government, but it leaves the rest of us with a mounting cost overrun, writes Paul Cullen
And so, Lawyers 1, Politicians 0. Once again, the legal profession has seen off the political establishment on the issue of tribunal fees, and calm is restored in the inquiry's rooms in Dublin Castle.
Senior counsel at the planning tribunal will continue to earn €2,250 a day for the foreseeable future while juniors will be paid €1,500. It is as though Michael McDowell never existed, let alone functioned as Minister for Justice.
For all the bluster of politicians on the matter of high legal fees, there was never any chance that the Government would be able to impose a pay cut on the tribunal without its team walking off the field of play.
This writer said so at the time minister for finance Charlie McCreevy made his original proposal in July 2004, and nothing in the Government's approach since then has presaged a strengthening of resolve.
Common sense alone dictates that no one in his or her right mind - and certainly not the powerful and well-connected brethren of the Law Library - would accept a 60 per cent reduction in salary from one day to the next.
The Government, while it was happy to curry favour with the public by echoing their abhorrence of high legal fees, was never prepared to take meaningful action on this issue.
It did the opposite, in fact, by approving the appointment of additional staff on the same high rates in November 2004.
The reason why? Because to take action that might be seen as trying to kill off the tribunals would put the inquiries and their attendant morass of corruption on the menu for the coming elections. The last thing this administration wants over the coming weeks is to hear again the litany of allegations of wrongdoing that has been levelled at so many senior figures. The election is about the economy, stupid, and let's not hear any more about the dim and distant and murky past.
Yet the deal worked out with the tribunal - or, more accurately, the lack of any agreement - has clear benefits for the Government. The tribunal is seen to be allowed go about its work, but the politicians are safe in the knowledge that little will happen in Dublin Castle between now and the far side of the election in June.
According to the tribunal website, the next scheduled witnesses are not due until June. A tribunal spokesman said yesterday that tomorrow's Supreme Court judgment in the case taken against it by developer Owen O'Callaghan would decide when the next hearings took place.
If the tribunal loses this case, its hearings into the rezoning of Quarryvale are unlikely to go ahead for a long time. However, even if it wins, it is hard to see the inquiry deciding to go ahead with controversial hearings immediately in advance of an election campaign.
Frequent breaks have long been a feature of this inquiry and nothing much has changed here. True, many have been forced by external legal challenges but already the tribunal has signalled it will take holidays over Easter, a two-week break in hearings before polling day and a pleasant six weeks in August/September.
So far the inquiry has sat for a grand total of nine days this year. No sign of much urgency to wrap up matters there.
The past month's discussions between Government Ministers and the public have left us no wiser about the eventual cost of the inquiry. Mr McDowell said €1 billion; tribunal chairman Judge Alan Mahon said €300 million. The real answer is probably that it depends on what investigations the tribunal does carry out and which ones it drops. For now at least, Mr McDowell and his Cabinet colleagues, by choosing to do nothing, are making their own small contributions to keeping up the mother of all cost overruns.