Ahern seeks €435,000 for first phase tribunal fees

FORMER TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern is seeking over €435,000 in legal fees arising from his early involvement with the planning tribunal.

Mr Ahern's bill for €435,291 covers the period up to 2002 only, and is likely to be dwarfed by the bills he will submit for his more recent and protracted entanglement with the inquiry.

Tribunal chairman Alan Mahon has sent his bill to legal cost accountants for assessment.

Figures obtained by The Irish Timesshow that the Department of Environment has paid out over €6 million in legal claims from 33 individuals involved in the first phases of the tribunal, largely the investigations into corrupt payments to former minister Ray Burke. Another €1 million in claims from eight others, including Mr Ahern, have been referred to legal cost accountants.

The department has also paid out over €4.5 million in legal fees to corporate entities who assisted the tribunal during this time. Many are banks or other companies that delved into their records to help the tribunal follow the money trail. Bills totalling over €300,000 submitted by another seven parties have been sent to the legal cost accountants.

The largest single payment, for €3.57 million, has been made to lawyers for the late James Gogarty, the whistleblower whose allegations led to the setting up of the tribunal. The next largest payment, for €1 million, was to the legal team of RTÉ, which was significantly involved in the tribunal's investigations into a payment to Mr Burke by a commercial rival, Century Radio.

In many case the sums paid are significantly lower than what was sought. Mr Gogarty's team originally sought almost €1 million more than it was eventually paid.

Fitzwilton, whose £30,000 election contribution to Mr Burke in 1989 was never publicly examined, sought €1.37 million in fees but this was reduced to €646,000.

Lawyers for Gerard Downes, a company executive who gave evidence for less than half a day, submitted a bill for €1.15 million but this was reduced to €633,000. Businessman John Mulhern filed a legal bill for €113,000 but this was slashed to €28,000.

It is clear now that a ruling by the tribunal not to pay costs of parties against whom adverse findings were made has saved the exchequer tens of millions of euro. Mr Burke, former assistant Dublin city and county manager George Redmond, developers Michael and Tom Bailey and others have all had to foot their own, considerable legal bills.

However, the tribunal has paid €73,000 in legal fees to Mr Burke's wife Ann (she sought €119,000) and €39,000 to Mr Redmond's wife Maureen.

Politicians and their parties have also received large sums in legal fees. Fianna Fail has been paid €483,000 and Fine Gael €215,000.