Tribunals, inquiries have cost €100m since 1997

Tribunals and other major inquiries have cost the State €100.99 million between 1997 and October 2003, the Minister for Justice told the Dáil.

"This does not include third party costs and, of course, many of those tribunals and inquiries are ongoing. The approximate annual cost of these ongoing tribunals and inquiries is some €47 million. The accumulated cost overhand could run to hundreds of millions of euro."

Mr McDowell said it was essential that the issue of costs of inquiries be addressed. He was introducing the Commissions of Investigation Bill, 2003, providing for the establishment of commissions to investigate and report on matters of significant public concern.

The Bill, he said, had its historic origins in the need to provide a means of investigation into the child sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church. "It is generally accepted that the very public and sometimes adversarial nature of tribunals of inquiry does not lend itself to investigation of matters of such a sensitive and intensely personal nature," he said.

The Bill, said Mr McDowell, enabled the establishment of commissions as and when required, and it was one of the attractions of the new legislation that several commissions might be sitting at any one time, investigating several and varied situations.

Mr Jim O'Keeffe (FG, Cork South West) said his major reservation about the Bill concerned the sidelining of the Oireachtas, which seemed to have no role other than making a positive resolution to establish a commission.

"In every other respect, the powers of the Minister are paramount and are exercised without reference to the Oireachtas. This is in total contrast to the position in the Tribunals of Inquiry legislation."

Fine Gael, he added, felt that the role of the Houses of the Oireachtas in bodies of this type needed to be reinstated. While he was giving qualified support to the general principle of the establishment of the commissions, he wanted answers to reasonable questions.

The Labour spokesman on justice, Mr Joe Costello, said his party supported the general thrust of the Bill.

"We are all aware of two constant and competing features of modern-day public life in Ireland. The first is widespread recognition of the need to secure accountability from those in positions of power, whether in political life, business, in the church or in the media.

"The second is the need to control the enormous legal costs that seem inevitably to arise whenever accountability is demanded in a public forum."