THE DÁIL should consider making the judges who sit on tribunals accountable to an Oireachtas committee, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said yesterday.
He added that it was time to scrap the legislation governing tribunals. "I think while respecting the independence of tribunals in making their decisions, they should be accountable for their overall procedures and I think we should consider - I put it no stronger than that - that the members of the tribunal should be subject to a cross-party Oireachtas committee.
"No-one should be free from objective and fair scrutiny when they are in such positions of power. Everybody has to be accountable to somebody, so I think that is a consideration," Mr Ahern said.
He said that while he had the height of respect for the judiciary, tribunals worked differently and a structure of unfairness was built into them. "It seems to me to be unfair that counsel for the tribunals decide what evidence to bring forward and what submissions to make and when any controversy arises about this, it is the tribunal that decides whether counsel is right or wrong."
In an interview in yesterday's Sunday Independenthe cited Judge Alan Mahon as saying to Mr Ahern's counsel, Conor Maguire, "this is how it works".
"Well, if it is the way it works, I think it should be changed. I think the time has come to scrap them and the 1921 Act, it is an Act from British time, it is an Act from a time when there was no fairness or justice for the small people, so it is my belief that the 1921 Act should be scrapped," said Mr Ahern.
He said lessons could be learned from the United States. After the Ken Starr inquisition of Bill Clinton a review of the role of independent counsel was set up.
"In my view, the time has come for a review of important aspects of tribunals in this country," Mr Ahern said. "We have now had about 10 of them in recent years. They are coming to an end and I think it is time to have the review and I hope my successor in Government will do that at the earliest time," he said.
He said he regretted what happened to Gráinne Carruth. "She is a good and loyal friend and I am sorry for what she had to go through. There was some criticisms in the media that I shouldn't have allowed that happen. If I could have taken that challenge or chalice from her, I would have done so. The tribunal called her as a witness and I couldn't go in her place, all I could hope was that she would be well treated.
"It is my view that Gráinne was not well treated. She was harangued, which means that she was hassled, she was unfairly hassled and, for the life of me, I don't understand why she was called back on the second day. I don't see why it was necessary that a mother of three, who could not genuinely remember, she was paid pretty low money for doing very good work in my office, but why she had to be . . . I think, the only witness that I can recall, who had the Tribunals of Inquiry Evidence Amendment Act with the threat of imprisonment read out to her. I don't see why a colleague, who is after working for me for almost a decade, why it was necessary to say that she could be fined €300,000?"
Speaking on the This Weekprogramme on RTÉ Radio One yesterday, Mr Ahern said he had intended to step down some time after the European and local elections next year, but the continuing controversy over his tribunal evidence had led him to review his plans.
He said he didn't want to "spend all of the time drifting up and down talking endlessly about things that happened 15 years ago and what did the last financial institution find and what did I remember? Just a lot of auld nonsense to be honest with you".