Tribunal barristers’ fees kept secret from public for f irst time

Taxpayers have right to know how money is spent, says TD

PAYMENTS to barristers in tribunals are ‘shrouded in secrecy’ because of the decision to transfer the management of legal fees to the State Claims Agency (SCA), the Independent TD Tommy Broughan has revealed.

The surprise development was revealed after the Independent Socialist TD asked for a breakdown of third-party legal fees paid out by the Moriarty Tribunal last year to the end of August.

The tribunal was established in 1997 to examine payments to politicians, including Charles Haughey, and issued its final report 14 years later in 2011.

The SCA is managing the legal costs of the Mahon, Moriarty, Morris and Charleton tribunals.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar revealed that Moriarty paid out €5,493,524 in third-party claims in the first eight months of 2017.

Such third-party claims are for the legal fees of people called before a tribunal. For example, in the case of Moriarty, Michael Lowry and the estate of the late Charles Haughey were third parties. The tribunal also paid its own legal team €272,495 and had administration costs of €162,607, as well as other costs of €10,836.

The total Moriarty bill in 2017 of €5,939,462 represents a significant increase over the previous year’s bill of €1,085,971, of which thirdparty legal fees were €181,057.

Mr Broughan was shocked to be refused a breakdown of the fees paid to barristers when he sought the figures in a follow-up Dáil question.

Previously, the incomes earned by barristers in tribunals had been revealed as a matter of course.

However, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe claimed that following advice from the SCA: ‘It is not possible now to divulge the full details of the seven third-party costs settlements, comprising the sum of €5,493,524, on grounds of the commercial sensitivity attaching to those settlements.’

This, said Mr Donohoe, was particularly the case in circumstances where ‘there are other outstanding third-party bills of costs’.

The SCA and the Department of Finance both confirmed that this was the current official policy.

Mr Donohoe said: ‘When all Moriarty Tribunal third-party costs have been agreed, it may be possible at that time to furnish the details the Deputy has requested’.

Responding, Mr Broughan said: ‘At the current rate of progress, we will all be in our graves before we are told the figures.’

He said: ‘The public are entitled, to know where their money is going,’ adding that this was ‘another example of how a Government which promised to be open and transparent is turning the lights of accountability out across every department’.

It is, he warned, ‘another decision that can only serve the vested interests. The full disclosure that occurred over the previous earnings of tribunal barristers was the catalyst for serious reform. Now, in the guise of progress and reform, that has been taken away.’

Legal fees for tribunals have been a long-running source of controversy, as they have created dozens of legal millionaires.

The Mahon Tribunal alone created 17, with one senior barrister telling the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘Those were the good old days; some right dunderheads became tribunal millionaires.’

Mr Broughan warned: ‘The people are entitled to know where these bills are springing from, who is being paid and how much.’

A spokesperson for the SCA said: ‘The policy of the agency is that it does not report details of individual bills of costs, as this information is commercially sensitive.’

‘This decision can only serve vested interests’