The Government will appoint more lawyers to the planning tribunal, to be paid the full rate of up to €2,250 a day, only five months after it announced it was slashing tribunal lawyers' fees.
Barristers at the Mahon tribunal will continue to be paid the existing full rate until the completion of the inquiry in 2007, the Minister for Environment, Mr Roche, said yesterday.
In addition, seven staff who will be recruited to speed up the work of the inquiry will also be paid at existing rates, rather than the reduced fees of €900 a day for a senior counsel announced by the Minister for Finance in July.
Mr Roche said he would shortly be seeking approval from the Oireachtas for changes to the tribunal's terms of reference designed to ensure it completed its work as quickly as possible.
As well as providing additional staff, the changes will allow the tribunal to discontinue certain investigations, and to split into three separate inquiries, each headed by a tribunal judge.
As a result, Mr Roche predicted, the tribunal would be able to complete its work by March 31st, 2007, much earlier than forecast earlier this year by the chairman, Judge Alan Mahon.
"The tribunal's most recent interim report suggested that, without any change to its terms of reference, it would have to continue to have public hearings until 2014 or 2015," the Minister said. "The Government and the tribunal were agreed that this could not be allowed to happen."
The tribunal, which was established in 1997, has cost about €36 million so far.
The seven extra staff - one senior counsel, three juniors and three research counsel - will add about €2 million to its annual budget.
