It seemed like a good idea at the time: set up an inquiry that would finally lift the lid on the stench surrounding planning in Dublin. But someone, somewhere along the way, took a wrong turn and ever since, the Flood tribunal has been, to borrow the chairman's words, "wandering like an Arab in the Sahara".

It is over two years since Mr Justice Flood was given the job which he defines as discovering "who gave what to whom" in relation to a few hundred acres of land in north county Dublin.

Two long years, and we are not a jot wiser as to what happened.

We are, in fact, a lot worse off. The number of conflicting stories and counter-allegations has grown with each day of evidence; the result is a morass of lies and confusion. As the phrase has it: "anyone who isn't confused doesn't really know what is going on".

Take the core event under investigation, the meeting in Ray Burke's house in June 1989. We don't know the date of the meeting. We don't know who was present. We don't even know how much Mr Burke got - was it £30,000, £40,000 or £80,000? And, of course, we don't know what happened to the money he did get.

Or take the Murphy-owned lands at the centre of the inquiry. The parties can't even agree on how many acres are involved.

Don't forget this is only one strand of the tribunal's remit. Virtually nothing has been heard of its investigations into the allegations made about Padraig Flynn, Frank Dunlop, Liam Lawlor and others. Lawyers are saying the inquiry could last three to four years.

The truth is that the tribunal has been lost for some considerable time. Its first mistake was to agree to listen to James Gogarty's grievances against his former employers in the Murphy group. That took over four months. And once Mr Gogarty had his say, everyone else wanted a right to reply. At length. With full legal representation, at the taxpayers' expense.

Like a fly caught in a spider's web, the tribunal has buzzed around a lot without making headway in any particular direction. Witnesses come and go, but leave little wisdom behind them. No one seems to remember much. The only events they confirm are those that are documented elsewhere, for example, in a bank statement. Their stories rely heavily on people who have died, and won't contradict them.

It's all been great fun, free theatre for anyone on a day off or between shopping trips. It's an important exercise in democracy, and it has opened up the legal profession to public examination. But every show gets pulled when the audiences drop off and the reviews are bad.

We've heard aged witnesses like Batt O'Shea and Joseph Murphy snr, neither of whom could correctly identify the years in which they got married, let alone throw any light on planning corruption. Or witnesses like Michael Bailey or Gay Grehan, each of whom contradicted himself from hour to hour.

Joseph Murphy jnr will shortly come to the box to deliver his story: "I wasn't there [at the Burke meeting]". I didn't know [about the payment]". But how long will it take the tribunal to hear this simple piece of evidence?

Legal procedures are hopelessly unsuited to an inquiry of this sort. For all the midnight oil the lawyers might be burning at home, the sitting days are short. Most days, it's 10.30 a.m. to 4 p.m., with frequent breaks and late starts. Five-day weeks are rare. Elections and legal holidays have led to prolonged breaks.

The Dail Public Accounts Committee sidelined the lawyers and wrapped up its inquiry into non-resident accounts in five weeks, the same time it took the tribunal to get Mr Murphy snr's evidence from Guernsey.

In Dublin Castle, everyone wants to question everyone else's witness, so even the most minor figures spend days in the box. Lawyers as a breed never use a short word when a long one would do, but at the tribunal some counsel seem to prefer a short book to a simple sentence. This hasn't stopped most of them from picking up work in the courts at the same time as they are representing their clients at the tribunal.

One legal team spent more than six months diligently attending the proceedings on behalf of their client, who was peripherally mentioned in Mr Gogarty's evidence. The lawyers hardly spoke a word, and the client completed his evidence in half a day. One waits with interest to see how much the taxpayer will be asked to cough up for this performance.

The tribunal should have confined its work, as Moriarty did, to "following the money trail". Instead, it has been left with a mess of verbiage and hearsay.

Matters haven't been helped by the chairman's failure to control witnesses, and to keep the proceedings moving at a reasonable speed. It may be that tribunal lawyers have discovered significant new information about the money sloshing around in the bank accounts of Mr Burke, Mr George Redmond and others. But if so, why not tell us?

One by one, the tribunal lawyers have seen their leads turn into dead ends. Mr Grehan told the lawyers he knew about the Burke payment in 1990, then said he had made a mistake. Mr Murphy jnr is soon to deliver a near-cast-iron alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the meeting in Mr Burke's house. The law of diminishing returns must be starting to kick in by now.

The hearings into the Gogarty allegations are unlikely to finish until the new year. Mr Justice Flood - who will be 72 next summer - then faces a difficult choice as to whether to plough ahead with the rest of the inquiry or deliver some form of interim report. The latter course may require amending legislation in the Oireachtas, as it has never been done before. The chairman's report can't form the basis for a criminal prosecution.

It took a few hard-working journalists and a £10,000 reward for information about planning corruption to worm out the information about payments to Mr Burke and Mr Redmond. That didn't cost the public anything. In contrast, the tribunal bills are approaching £5 million. Based on the experience of the beef tribunal - have we learned anything? - the actual cost will be two to three times that figure when the various legal teams get their costs.

Up to £20 million to find out what happened at the meeting in Mr Burke's house 10 years ago - will no one shout stop?