Moriarty Tribunal could cost State over €120m
No definite figure is available on the final cost of expenses and claims for witnesses and third parties who appeared before the 14-year inquiry into the sale of the state’s second phone licence.
The Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday expressed concern that the final costs for Moriarty were “lingering on” and were an unknown burden on the taxpayer.
PAC chairman John McGuinness asked the Department of Taoiseach, which oversees spending on the inquiry, to ask Judge Michael Moriarty for estimates on the final costs and third-party expenses. He said it was necessary to ask how much the State was exposed to and it was “a huge burden to the taxpayer.”
Department secretary general Martin Fraser told TDs that lawyers working for the tribunal had earned over €33.7m so far.
The top paid barristers include Jeremiah Healy (€9.5m), John Coughlan (€9.2m), Jacqueline O’Brien (€6.9m), Maire Moriarty (€2.5m) and Stephen McCullough (€2m). Most of these lawyers worked on the inquiry since it began in 1997 up until its final report last year, except for Mr McCullough who started in mid-2002.
Nine lawyers were paid the €33m, which included daily fees which were recently reduced to nearly €2,000.
Fine Gael’s Kieran O’Donnell said it was a “crazy amount of money.”
A total of €650,000 has been set aside for the inquiry this year which will cover administration costs and fees for two junior barristers and a solicitor.
Mr Fraser said up to €1.7m has been set aside for 13 third-party claims so far, with dozens more yet to be decided.
To date, the tribunal has cost over €43.7m.
A previous estimate by the Comptroller & Auditor General put the third-party costs at somewhere between €40m and €80m, which means the final cost could be over €120m.
Mr Fraser agreed to write to Judge Moriarty and inquire about final costs for the inquiry.
The head of the CSO has agreed to reveal the number of citizens who declared themselves Jedi Knights as their religion during the latest census.
The unusual request was made by Dublin TD Eoin Murphy who asked for the information during an Oireachtas committee yesterday.
The Fine Gael TD said there had been reports of people declaring themselves as Star Wars fictional characters for their faith. “How do we know that the data we get is accurate,” Mr Murphy asked, if there were active campaigns for people to indicate a religion which was not their true faith.
CSO chief Gerry O’Hanlon replied: “If somebody wishes under ‘religious denomination’ to consider themselves a Jedi Knight, well, the CSO is quite willing to accept it as Jedi Knight, because it’s self-declaration… whether such a thing exists or not is immaterial.”
Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe said if the CSO supplied the Jedi stats, their replies would probably be “the most unusual piece of correspondence the [Oireachtas] Public Accounts Committee has ever received”.
The census asked 1.6m households what was their religion but also offered respondents the choice of putting in ‘other’ on forms and declaring what it was.
- Juno McEnroe
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