Commission proposes changes to cut inquiry costs

SWEEPING changes to keep down potentially huge costs of future public inquiries have been proposed by the Law Reform Commission.

In a consultation document, the body branded some of the tribunals currently running as a “very extravagant measure of constitutional justice...granted...where it was not legally or constitutionally required”.

The commission said the Government, acting on foot of Oireachtas approval, should be given the power to wind up a tribunal where it has been sitting for some time and seemed “unlikely to bear fruit”.

Any decision would only be made in “extreme circumstances”, according to Professor David Gwynn Morgan, one of the report’s authors.

Prof Morgan outlined the commission’s other conclusions:

There is no constitutional requirement for victims, such as those affected by contaminated blood or child abuse, to have separate legal representation.

A new method of calculating costs should be devised, with barristers paid on a monthly or yearly basis, or for work done, rather than a daily rate.

Senior counsel should not be paid for work that could easily be done by a junior barrister or a junior accountant.

Professor Morgan said the daily rate, based on a trial lasting days or weeks, is calculated on the basis that barristers have “sunny days to pay for rainy days”. He described the tribunals as “three of four years of pure sunshine”.

He added that Frank McBrearty and family, currently fighting for up front costs to pay for legal representation at the Morris Tribunal into garda corruption in Donegal, should have confidence in the counsel for the tribunal and Mr Justice Frederick Morris to ask the tough questions on their behalf.

The report concludes that an inquiry should, in the first instance, be held in private; that it should concentrate on the institution, the business or profession, rather than an individual; and that any final published report should include comments by any person whose good name or conduct is called into question.

A tribunal of inquiry may then follow while it would be left to the DPP to decide whether to prosecute individuals accused of wrongdoing.