THE Fianna Fail leader challenged the Taoiseach to say if he believed that the public interest was being adequately represented at the Dunnes payments tribunal.
Mr Bertie Ahern said that there had been significant comments to the contrary in recent times by journalists and legal observers.
Mr Bruton said his understanding was that the concept of a counsel for the public interest was not one where the counsel was expected on a daily basis to replicate or repeat the questioning or the argumentation that the tribunal it self through its counsel, was advancing.
It was only in situations where it could be argued that there was a wider public interest, beyond that which the tribunal itself was pursuing, that the issue arose where the counsel for the public interest came into the picture. He added that the counsel for the public interest was not acting in any sense on the Government's instructions. "Therefore, it is not appropriate for me to say what the counsel for the public interest should or should not be doing."
Earlier, Mr Bruton said the Office of the Attorney General, through the Chief State Solicitor's Office, had instructed one senior counsel and one junior counsel at the tribunal. Because the Attorney General himself had a conflict of interest - reported to the House on December 3rd last - relating to certain matters that arose before the tribunal, procedures had been put in place to deal with it. The senior legal assistant and a third legal assistant had been delegated the function of instructing counsel for the public interest.
Mr Des O'Malley (PD, Limerick East) asked if the Taoiseach considered it desirable that the counsel appearing in the public interest should be instructed by a private solicitor who was independent of everybody, rather than by civil servants who were the legal advisers to the Government.
Mr Bruton said that the senior legal assistant in the office of the AG, Mr James Hamilton, was somebody who had the knowledge, capacity, integrity and in dependence of judgment to act entirely free of all influence from all quarters in the instructions he would give to counsel acting for the public interest before any tribunal.