Politicians who set up tribunals now complaining

TERRY PRONE’S diatribe on the tribunals (Irish Examiner, February 16) cannot and should not go unchallenged.

She lists all the usual complaints. They are too expensive; their terms of reference too wide; they are “a political creation dressed up as a quasi-legal forum”; a “consequence of the tribunal era is the destruction of the presumption of innocence”.

She quotes with approval a caller to a radio programme who said he would put Michael McDowell in power for nothing other than his criticism of tribunals. Shutting them down would, Ms Prone says, “get this entire Government a whole bunch of votes they wouldn’t otherwise get”. She never asked why tribunals have problems.

Why are they too expensive? The reason is that those politicians that set them up, and who are now complaining about them, decided the level of the fees to the tribunal lawyers.

Why are they going on too long and are destructive of the principle of the presumption of innocence? This is because their terms of reference are too wide and they have no time limit.

Who set their terms of reference? Those self-same politicians who are now complaining about them.

As Ms Prone said, these politicians have designed a “system to protect wrongdoers from the very legal environment that should take action on behalf of society”. Yet Ms Prone now wants to put the politicians responsible for this cynical exercise back in power.

Anthony Leavy

1 Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13