Government Agrees Dates for New Schedule of Fees for Existing Tribunals & Inquiries
On 19th July last, the Minister for Finance announced a newschedule offees for barristers in Tribunals and Inquiries.Thatschedule will applyto any new Tribunal or Inquiry which isestablished after 1st September2004.
The Minister at that time announced that the new schedule wouldin due course also be applied to existing Tribunals andInquiries. He said that suchapplication would occur after aprocess of consultation with the chairpersons of these Tribunalsand Inquiries for the purposes of assessing a reasonable date forthe application of the schedule, bearing in mind the Terms ofReference of each Tribunal or Inquiry.
The Government at its weekly meeting this week agreed the dateson whichthe new schedule of fees would be applied to most existingTribunals andInquiries. These are:
The Murphy Inquiry into child sexual abuse in Ferns (1stDecember 2004),
The Clarke Inquiry into events at Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda(31st March 2005)
The Barr Tribunal, investigating the shooting dead of John Cartyat Abbylara (1st June 2005)
The Moriarty Tribunal, investigating payments to Mr Haughey andMr Lowry (11th January 2006), and
The Morris Tribunal investigating activities by Gardaí inDonegal (30th September 2006).
The effect of the new schedule of legal fees will be to greatlyreduce thecost of Tribunals and Inquiries should they continuetheir work beyond theset dates.
The Government has decided to set different dates in relation todifferentTribunals and Inquiries having regard to the individualcircumstances ofeach Tribunal or Inquiry and after communicationwith each of their Chairpersons.
The Government determined not to set dates which wereunrealistically early, as to do so might have involved extensivedisruption of the Tribunals and Inquiries by reason of changes inlegal personnel involved. The delays
and costs which such changes would have entailed would haveadded to, rather than reduced, the costs of the Tribunals andInquiries.
The relevant date in respect of the Mahon Tribunal will be setonce changesto the Terms of Reference of that Tribunal have beenmade. Such changeswill be made in the context of theconsideration by the Houses of the Oireachtas of that Tribunal'sFourth Interim Report. Consultations in relation to those changeswill be continuing over the next few weeks.
In relation to the Dunne (Post Mortem) Inquiry, the Governmenthas decidedto direct that Inquiry to complete its work and issueits final report by31st March 2005 by which date the Inquiry willcease to exist.
5th September 2004