Inside Politics:Michael McDowell's flair for the dramatic has once again made him the leading character in an unfolding political drama. The problem is that neither he, nor anybody else, has any idea how it will all end and, with the election just three months away, he has introduced a new element of uncertainty into the political equation to the consternation of some of his Cabinet colleagues, writes Stephen Collins.
Since Mr McDowell made his claims about the cost and duration of the Mahon tribunal on Wednesday, the controversy has spiralled out of control. The outrage of the Opposition was entirely predictable, but the public challenge to the Minister for Justice by Judge Alan Mahon was a bolt from the blue.
The Opposition has seized on the judge's statement as evidence that Mr McDowell was trying to mislead people about the true cost of the tribunal. However, the Tánaiste not only stuck to his guns, he maintained that as recently as two weeks ago Judge Mahon was unable to give any estimate about the ultimate cost of the tribunal.
Friends and foes are still not sure what possessed Mr McDowell to raise the issue at all. Initially the Opposition assumed that his reference to the potential €1 billion cost of the Mahon tribunal was an attempt to divert attention from the fact that the PDs chose not to contribute to the Dáil debate on the Moriarty tribunal earlier that day.
It was certainly odd that the PDs, whose foundation in 1985 was a direct response to the culture of corruption that surrounded Charles Haughey, should voluntarily abstain from the Dáil debate on a report which vindicated their very existence. Whether it was the minor embarrassment of the Taoiseach's role in signing blank cheques, or fear of Opposition taunts, the decision not to participate in the debate did not make political sense.
If Mr McDowell was seeking to create a diversion by raising the issue of the cost and duration of the Mahon tribunal he certainly succeeded. His intervention prompted immediate claims that the Government wanted to shut down the tribunal before it gets to potentially damaging allegations about the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil in the Quarryvale Two module which is due to open next month.
Bertie Ahern tried to dampen down the controversy straight away by saying that he wanted the tribunal to continue. However, the Opposition parties pounced on the Tánaiste's remarks as evidence that there was a conspiracy afoot to derail the tribunal at this critical point in its life, and the controversy simply could not be contained.
Almost simultaneously another tribunal- related issue entered the political arena. A special summons was served on Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy and public affairs correspondent Colm Keena to appear in the High Court on Monday week.
The summons seeks to compel them to disclose sources and documents relating to reports in the newspaper last September about payments made to the Taoiseach when he was minister for finance.
The move to bring journalists to court on the payments to the Taoiseach issue added another layer of potential embarrassment to the episode as far as the Government was concerned, coming on top of claims that Ministers wanted to shut down the tribunal for political reasons.
Just to cap it all, the following day Judge Mahon wrote to the Clerk of the Dáil, Kieran Coughlan, directly contradicting the claim made by Mr McDowell that the tribunal would end up costing €1 billion. He also disputed the claim that the tribunal would go on indefinitely and maintained that the expensive public sessions on the inter-linked modules at the core of its investigation would finish next year.
The Government tried to quell the raging political storm by issuing a statement strongly rejecting Opposition assertions that it was attempting to close down the tribunal. The Government pleaded that it was only attempting to get clarification on how long it would go on for and what fees would be paid.
In fairness, the issue of the fees being paid to the barristers is a real one. Legislation providing for lower fees was passed by the Dáil in 2004 and has been applied to a number of tribunals where senior counsel are getting €900 a day rather than the €2,250 being paid to the seniors on the Mahon tribunal team.
A tussle has been going on in the background in an effort to bring the Mahon fees into line. A deadline for a review of the fees is coming up in March, and the Tánaiste was clearly trying to apply public pressure in advance. It was the one issue not addressed by the judge in his letter to the Dáil. On the question of the final costs of the tribunal, Judge Mahon was quite emphatic that the figure would be €300 million at most.
The judge also made the fair point that the tribunal has taken so long and has missed a number of deadlines to wrap up modules because a number of key figures have delayed it by going to the High Court and the Supreme Court in an effort to block its investigations.
The Supreme Court is to give a decision shortly in the last of those big cases, the one taken by Cork property developer, Owen O'Callaghan. A decision in its favour would allow the tribunal to proceed with the Quarryvale Two module but it will have very little time to get into it before the election.
After all the heat of recent days the Government still has to make a decision on whether a confrontation with the tribunal on the issue of lawyers fees is worth having. The public would probably like to see the lawyers having their wings clipped, but it could become a political problem if it appeared to be a smokescreen for hampering the tribunal's work.