Government caved in on lawyer fees - Labour

The Government's decision not to cut fees paid to lawyers working on two tribunals has been criticised by the Labour Party as a waste of public money.

The party's finance spokeswoman, Joan Burton, accused the Government of "caving in" to pressure from the legal profession.

The Government announced yesterday it has decided to extend the life of the Moriarty and Morris tribunals by up to a year at full rates of pay for barristers despite previous pledges to cut legal fees for barristers.

The Government has previously signalled it would cut lawyer's fees from €2,500 a day to €900 a day if tribunals failed to finish by their scheduled time. The Government pledged to bring in the new scale from September 2006.

The Moriarty tribunal has been given a six-month extension and is now expected to conclude by January 2007, while the Morris tribunal's investigation into Garda corruption has been given until October 2007 to conclude.

In a one-line statement yesterday, the Government said it had "acceded to a request" from the tribunal chairmen "for an extension of the agreed completion dates at the existing levels of remuneration".

Speaking at the Fianna Fáil Ardfheis in 2004, then finance minister Charlie McCreevy described the fees as "astronomical" the fees paid to lawyers. "This gravy train has gone on long enough," he said.

Last November, the Taoiseach insisted that Moriarty lawyers' fees would be cut if the tribunal failed to finish its work by the end of June.

"Now for some reason, the Government has decided that 'this gravy train' should be allowed to chug along for quite a bit longer," said Ms Burton.

"Such an excessive level of fees should never have been conceded in the first place and some lawyers have been able to earn sums of up to several million pounds from their efforts. The lawyers were also given clear notice as far back as 2004 that the fee structure was to change, and one would have hoped that this would have provided an incentive to conclude the various tribunals before that date," she said.

"This is yet another example of the absolute failure by the Government to ensure that public money is spent prudently and that taxpayers get value for their hard earned money."

Total costs incurred by the Moriarty tribunal from 1997 to end of January 2006 was €22,587,982. Of that, €17,134,415 went on legal fees.