Nine departments paid €15m in legal bills since 1998

Legal costs for nine Government departments have totalled more than €15 million since 1998, excluding the costs of tribunals and other inquiries.

In a series of parliamentary questions across all Government departments, Fine Gael's finance spokesman Richard Bruton asked each Minister the "total cost, number and nature of legal services sought by his/her department from 1998 to 2004 and to date in 2005".

Of the departments that listed their costs, Transport had the highest at €4,774,058.03, including €1,219,267 for consultancy work in 2000 and 2001 on an Initial Public Offering for Aer Lingus. Finance faced a legal bill totalling €4,457,784 since 1998. Minister for Finance Brian Cowen, like other Ministers, pointed out that the department used the services of the Office of the Attorney General and the Chief State Solicitors. Outside legal advice was sought when advice of a specific and/or specialist nature was required.

This occurred 28 times, and of those services the highest bill was for €1.6 million, for advice on the establishment of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority.

Minister for the Environment Dick Roche said that since 1998 legal advice was sought on 69 occasions, at a total cost of €1,375,396.76, although the individual services were not listed. Mr Roche pointed out that that "does not include payments in relation to the planning tribunal.

"Although this would make up the great bulk of these fees paid out by my department to lawyers - the procurement of legal advice."

Legal bills in the Department of Agriculture totalled €3,698,369.60 while the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, established in 2002, paid legal bills of €184,204.27.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs had a legal bill totalling €548,277, while the Taoiseach's department had costs of €38,282. Legal services to the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism was €34,420.

The Department of Defence listed a bill of €6,398 for last year only. The Minister said: "My department has recourse to the offices of the Chief State Solicitor and the Attorney General for advice so often that it would be impossible to collate the information with regard to those offices". This would have included the costs for the Army deafness cases.

Six departments - Communications, Marine and Natural Resources; Foreign Affairs; Enterprise, Trade and Employment; Justice; Education and Health - did not have enough time to compile the information.