Efficiency of Hutton raises questions about tribunals here, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent.
The Hutton inquiry into the circumstances leading to the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly began on August 1st and heard its last evidence yesterday. Lord Hutton is likely to complete his report before Christmas.
Meanwhile, the Moriarty tribunal, which was set up in 1997 but did not hold its first hearing until 1999, seems set to continue for years, as does the Mahon (formerly Flood) tribunal, set up the same year.
The Barr inquiry into the death of John Carthy in Abbeylara and the Morris tribunal into Garda corruption in Donegal both started last year, and no one expects them to finish in this. The Laffoy Commission, set up three years ago, has just hit a wall, and its future is uncertain.
Other, non-public, inquiries are also ongoing for over a year, including the Dunne inquiry into organ retention by hospitals, and the Barron inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
There is widespread public indignation at the cost of these tribunals, and especially at the fact that the main beneficiaries appear to be lawyers. Senior barristers, whether working for the tribunals themselves or for those who appear as witnesses before them, earn upwards of €2,000 a day, with juniors earning two-thirds of that. When the tribunals run for years and years this amounts to a very tidy sum, and all those who co-operate are likely to get their costs from the public purse.
Yet the public appetite for tribunals remains unsated, with each new scandal about the activities of those expected to serve the public - most recently doctors - sparking fresh demands for a public inquiry. The latest come from those affected by the malpractice of obstetrician Dr Michael Neary, and those who were the victims of the obstetric practice of cutting the pelvis, known as symphysiotomy.
If these inquiries go ahead the public purse will face a further drain on resources that arguably should be going to improve the health service into the future, and the public will face a long recitation of evidence about events that rightly arouse indignation, but which is likely to be still going on long after that indignation has faded.
So how did Lord Hutton manage to do it all so quickly? And why can't we?
The Hutton inquiry differs in many important respects from recent tribunals here. It is an ad-hoc, not a statutory, tribunal, set up at the request of the UK government, rather than under the 1921 Tribunals of Inquiry Act, which we share with that jurisdiction. The Bloody Sunday inquiry in Britain, set up under that Act, is still meandering on.
The Hutton inquiry cannot compel witnesses or demand discovery of documents. However, as most of the witnesses are either members of the UK government or its employees, their co-operation was guaranteed from the outset, and the other main party, the BBC, also indicated it would co-operate.
Although there is no written constitution in the UK, people do have the right to defend their good name, and this is upheld by those appearing before the inquiry having the right to legal representation, and their counsel can cross-examine other witnesses, but in Hutton this has only been after the evidence has been outlined in the first phase.
However, the main distinguishing feature of the Hutton inquiry is its narrow focus. Its terms of reference were to examine the circumstances leading up to Dr Kelly's death, and attempts to widen it to other aspects of the government's policy on the Iraqi war were resisted.
The personality of Lord Hutton, who has driven things on at a spanking pace, is also a major factor in its speed. In contrast with Hutton, many of the inquiries here have a very wide remit, and the time-span in the events under examination covers years, and many different actions by many different people.
Some of the matters being inquired into happened decades, not months, ago. Certain of the questions being examined, like the awarding of the second mobile-phone licence, have enormous commercial and financial implications.
They are also statutory inquiries, with full compellability powers. Non-statutory inquiries, like the Dunne inquiry, have been criticised because they lack this power.
The question is what tribunals of inquiry are, or should be, for, and whether they are the right instrument for examining many of these matters at all.
The 1921 Act states that a tribunal should be set up "for inquiring into a definite matter . . . of urgent public importance." Therefore the matter should be narrowly defined and be both urgent and of importance to the public as a whole.
Because tribunals here are usually chaired by a judge, they are confused in the public mind with the courts and the administration of justice, and those who appear before them are seen as somehow being accused of something.
Their very appearance before the tribunals is seen as an opportunity for them to be traduced in public, with a vague expectation that they will confess to their sins and publicly repent.
But tribunals are not courts of law. If their chairmen or chairwomen happen to be judges they are not exercising a judicial function in the tribunals; their purpose is to discover facts, and those who appear before them are witnesses, not accused. But because their reputations can often be on the line, they feel the need to be tooled up with the best lawyers money - usually the taxpayer's money - can buy.
Tribunals are set up by the Oireachtas, so they should be extensions of its powers and responsibilities, that is, to legislate. Therefore the end result of a tribunal should be firm proposals for new legislation or for system changes.
This does not necessarily mean an exhaustive examination of every highway and byway that arises. Months are being spent on Mr Liam Lawlor's labyrinthine financial dealings, without it being clear what changes in planning law, or other anti-corruption measures, this might lead to.
Other tribunals seem to be similarly bogged down in detail long after it is obvious that there is a problem, and even what the solution to that problem, through changes in law or in the practice of official bodies, might be.
Yet there is no mechanism for restricting the extent of the inquiry, once the terms of reference are set. These can be amended by the Oireachtas, but so far this has happened in order to expand, not restrict, terms of reference.
They receive no timetable and have no budgetary restrictions. Those who chair them are not, through no fault of theirs, trained in budgeting or cost-benefit analysis. So there is a built-in financial incentive for the lawyers to prolong the tribunals and explore every evidential avenue that might arise.
Sometimes they may not even be the best people to try to find evidence, as the skills required are investigative rather than those of presenting evidence and cross-examination.
These are not new problems, and some of them were addressed by the Committee on Public Accounts in its final Report on Parliamentary Inquiries in 2000.
They are also addressed in the Bill now before the Dáil, the Commissions of Investigation Bill, which seeks to establish a new form of inquiry, to be conducted in private, with clear time and budgetary restrictions, and using the skills of non-legal disciplines like accountancy and specialist investigators. Public hearings would only become necessary if this type of inquiry did not succeed, and these could carry heavy financial costs for those who caused it to come about.
But this does not answer what to do with our existing inquiries, some of which seems destined to run for years.
They are the creation of the Oireachtas, and the Oireachtas has the power to change their terms of reference or, indeed, to wind them up. But they serve as a useful safety valve for the Government when faced with public outrage, and an opportunity for the opposition to see the alleged past misdeeds of its political opponents paraded in public.
Despite all the complaints about the time and the cost involved, it seems hardly likely that there will be all-party agreement in the Dáil to call a halt.