Government appoints High Court judge to chair tribunal

The Government has appointed Mr Justice Michael Moriarty to chair the second tribunal of inquiry into payments to politicians. Government sources indicated last night that the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, would make an order within the next couple of days formally setting up the new tribunal.

Mr Justice Moriarty has been a High Court judge since March 1996. He was a judge of the Circuit Court since 1987 and made his mark in criminal cases. As the sole chairman of the new inquiry, he will have absolute discretion to decide when public hearings will start. Sources in political circles believe that witnesses may not be called for a number of weeks.

It is understood, meanwhile, that Mr Justice McCracken, chairman of the inquiry into Dunnes Stores payments to former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, and former minister, Mr Michael Lowry, among others, is now unlikely to appeal the decision of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.

The Grand Court refused to make orders granting the tribunal the power to gain information about the Ansbacher Deposits on the grounds that it was not a "court or tribunal" within the meaning of the Evidence (Proceedings in Other Jurisdictions) Act 1975 as applied to the Cayman Islands.

The second tribunal has a mandate to investigate any other payments to Mr Haughey and Mr Lowry and if any other politicians benefited from the Ansbacher accounts, totalling £38 million.

The terms of reference permit the tribunal, once it establishes the fact and source of any payment, to then identify, following an examination of the period that Mr Haughey or Mr Lowry held ministerial Office, whether there was a connection between anything done in office and the payment itself.

The new tribunal is expected to operate along similar lines to the McCracken tribunal. It can carry out investigations in private initially to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to warrant a full-scale inquiry.