The Mahon Tribunal - Focus onobjectives, not costs

THE Mahon Tribunal has become one of the great fault lines of our society: you either support it or regard it as a waste of time and money.

As divisive issues go it’s joined the Emerald Premiership of Division. It’s right up there with abortion, the career of Charles Haughey and Roy Keane’s behaviour at the World Cup. There’s little — if any — middle ground, and expressing an opinion one way or another has become as much an act of faith as the expression of a rational conclusion.

It is yet another manifestation of the tragic, inherited divisions that stymie our political development. If you’re for it, it’s unlikely you’re a Fianna Fáil diehard and, sadly, the converse is equally predictable. These positions are adopted because of political allegiances rather than any objective assessments.

This morning’s breakdown of the ridiculous costsinvolved will reinvigorate and sustain the argument that suggests, with whatever objective in mind, that it’s a wasteful, ineffective process that ought to end.

Those who have kept sight of the objectives — to inquire into corruption surrounding planning matters in Dublin — will wish that it was much more effective, and that its success was not dependent on the gentlemen’s hours and voracious appetites held so dear by the entrepreneurs at the law library.

To confuse the performance of the tribunal — and here we refer only to its need for funds and its difficulties in reaching conclusions — with its objectives suits those who would prefer that their activities remain secret.

A dreadfully slow, high-cost and easily derided opponent is just the kind of one many of those under scrutiny would like: all the easier to cut the legs from under it. The shameful campaign waged by members of the government to undermine the credibility of the tribunal might be less offensive if they were working to replace it with a more efficient system, one that could actually conclude its business before a significant number of those involved died of old age. One that did not cost the price of a decent school every few months. One that might make a significant contribution to the raising of standards in our political culture.

As usual there’s no need to hold your breath.

Fine Gael’s Pauline conversion on pursuing the government on matters raised by the tribunal — a challenge it, to its tremendous cost, shirked during last year’s election campaign — may turn out to be another ill-informed and ill-timed intervention. Fine Gael, like the rest of us, would be far better off to let events at Dublin Castle take their course.

The fact is that the costs of the tribunal could be recovered if Criminal Assets’ Bureau 2006 case against Jackson Way Properties to freeze 17 acres of land near Dublin succeeds. The land is believed to have beenrezoned as a result of bribery in 1997. The rezoning led to an increase in the value of the land to more than €50 million, which could now be seized by the State under the Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Act. If the CAB wins the case it will have recouped almost the entire running costs of the tribunal in one action.

Elsewhere, chairman of the Revenue Commissioners Frank Daly stated in 2006 that the revelations at the tribunals, Dirt and Ansbacher inquiries have helped the State recover more than €2 billion in tax from offshore and domestic accounts. That is twice the cost of all the tribunals and inquiries combined. So, the money — however wasteful — is not the problem.

We should remember that the tribunal was established to investigate a cancer at the heart of our society, a cancer that has not been dealt with yet.

The tribunal is far too expensive and far too slow, but until such time as we establish a better modus operandi we must support it. That so many powerful and questionable interests hope we do not is answer enough.