Watchdog: Govt backed off cuts to tribunal 'gravy train'

The Government backed down three times on repeated attempts to cut €2,250-a-day fees of tribunal barristers after threats they would walk away from the inquiries, it emerged today.

Top civil servants also revealed how lawyers being paid as much as €8m from the public purse for the long-running investigations were handpicked without any public tender process.

An Oireachtas spending watchdog heard how the revelations have left the tribunals open to allegations of cronyism among an exclusive and untouchable legal profession.

Fine Gael’s Bernard Allen TD, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, questioned why lawyers were privately selected by the chairman of each tribunal and their fees agreed with the Attorney General.

“This is the greatest gravy train we have seen in Irish history and one man was able to call the shots,” he said.

An investigation into the legal fees charged for the Morris, Mahon and Moriarty tribunals also heard:

- Lawyers on a “watching brief” were paid €750 a day to read a transcript of hearings that were sent to them.

- “Arcane” legal profession practices meant there were no time sheets or contracts for work done, which is expected to cost taxpayers as much as €370m.

- Tribunal barristers are getting €2,250 a day for as much as 220 days of the year.

The country’s most senior civil servant, Dermot McCarthy, admitted there was a basis for concern over the scale of legal fees.

The secretary general at the Department of the Taoiseach said it was his person opinion that ultimately the tribunals system was “flawed”.

Mr McCarthy was one of four top civil servants hauled before the spending watchdog to answer questions about hundreds of millions of euro in public money spent on tribunal legal teams.

Another, Sean Aylward, secretary general of the Department of Justice, said the customs and practices of the legal profession were followed when recruiting lawyers.

A rate was struck between the chairman of each tribunal and the attorney general, which was then sanctioned by the finance minister of the time, he said.

Mr Aylward said the issue of fees was brought before the Government on three occasions.

Each time a decision was taken that the timely completion of the tribunal outweighed any potential disruption over fee cuts, he told the committee.

“It would have led to people walking off the pitch,” he said.

The top civil servant claimed the Government agonised over facing down people who were insisting on a new rate being paid.

But Fianna Fáil’s Sean Fleming dismissed the claims, insisting a new chairman was able to take over the Mahon tribunal while a number of senior counsel had also left the continuing inquiry.

“The facts prove the taxpayer got a raw deal out of this,” he said.

“Somebody caved in when the threat was made to them.”

Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath said an extremely cavalier approach was taken to extraordinary amounts of taxpayers’ money.

“We have left ourselves open to allegations of cronyism and that it was an exclusive club,” he said.

But Mr Aylward insisted the tribunal chairmen were always anxious to move things on quickly and had no interest in prolonging hearings for financial gains.

Each chairman was paid “just” the daily rate of a normal judge, he pointed out.

Mr McGrath asked if the fact some legal teams were paid out far less than they claimed for – in one case almost €400,000 less – showed the legal profession was “chancing their arm”.

Mr Aylward said “traditional civil service caution” prevented him using that description.

The four-hour hearing heard that barristers to the Moriarty Tribunal were paid as much as €8.5m in fees, as much as €5.3m in the Mahon Tribunal and a top fee of €2.2m at the Morris Tribunal.

Mr Aylward said a “special rate” was struck for a “watching brief” barrister at the Morris Tribunal, at a third of the daily rate (€750) a day for reading a transcript of the hearing which was sent out to them.

The legal profession appeared to have been regarded as a very privileged group who were untouchable, according to Labour’s Roisin Shortall.

“It seems the normal values of accountability don’t apply to these groups, the same as medical consultants,” she said.