Ireland has spent almost €600m on tribunals and investigations

The State has spent almost €600 million on 27 tribunals of inquiry and commissions of investigation since the late 1990s, an examination by The Irish Times of their overall costs has found.

The cumulative cost of 10 tribunals and 17 commissions of investigation, and inquiries, amounts to €597 million, or an average of €22 million per inquiry. The average length is more than five years.

Three of the commissions, all into single deaths, cost €1 million or less. In contrast, the cost of the planning tribunal, which ran for 15 years from 1997 to 2012, has amounted to €150 million.

Publication of the Farrelly Commission report on the ‘Grace’ case has once again highlighted the duration and high cost associated with public inquiries in the Republic.

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The commission was established in 2017, and its final report was published eight years later. It has cost €13.6 million to date, with the cost expected to rise as more legal claims are processed.

On Wednesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that the process had been “far too long” and that it was “deeply unsatisfactory” for all concerned.

“We should have institutions that can get these investigations done more quickly, more effectively, and get answers,” he said.

In most other countries, public inquiries are carried out by parliamentary committees. However, a landmark legal judgment in 1971 effectively put an end to that system in Ireland.

The Public Accounts Committee wanted to put specific allegations to Pádraig Haughey, a brother of Charles Haughey, in relation to an alleged plot to import arms into the State. Haughey refused. When the case was heard on appeal by the Supreme Court, it held that a person whose conduct was being called into question must be “afforded a reasonable means of defending himself or herself”.

The planning tribunal (which looked into allegations of corrupt planning payments in Dublin) and the Moriarty tribunal (which examined payments made to Charles Haughey and, separately, to Michael Lowry) took well over a decade to conclude their work.

Critics have said the “urgent matters of public interest” being investigated had long faded from public consciousness by the time they reported.

In 2004, then minister for justice Michael McDowell established commissions of investigation. On Wednesday, McDowell, now a Senator, said they were intended to be “short, sharp, focused inquiries into simple issues which would not warrant a public tribunal, but which needed compulsory powers”.

The commission was designed to be non-adversarial, with most of its work done in private. The theory was that this would eliminate expensive public hearings and avoid individuals getting “lawyered up”.

The Nyberg commission into the banking collapse, which reported in 2011, was a good example of a commission working perfectly. It did its work in a matter of months for €1.2 million. Its report was also well received, with harsh criticism of failures in the banks, regulators and the State’s blanket guarantee scheme.

However, some of the subsequent commissions had wide terms of reference, heard evidence in public, interviewed many witnesses, involved extensive legal representations and took many years.

The Irish Bank Resolution Corporation commission, or Siteserv inquiry, set up in 2015, was such an example, taking seven years to produce a report in 2022. Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said the investigation was supposed to cost €4 million and ended up costing €19 million.

Its general investigation had been “never ending”, he further alleged, at a cost of millions to the taxpayer.

“The problem is that there are no alternatives. Ever since the Haughey case in 1970, courts have been reluctant to let politicians do any inquiries,” said Eoin O’Malley, associate professor in political science at DCU.

“Even since their reform under the McDowell legislation, tribunals and commissions of inquiry remain slow, tied up in legal red tape because of the courts’ requirements of fair procedure. This stops them from becoming witch hunts, but at a financial and time cost that makes them almost irrelevant.”

“The Siteserv inquiry, which was a review of a single, discrete transaction, was so late [publishing its findings] that it was irrelevant politically and was of limited use to policymakers.”

Mr McDowell said the success or failure will turn on several factors. “It depends on who’s selected. It depends on the terms of reference. It depends on whether there are strict controls, on how long it goes on. It depends on whether it turns into a legal gravy train. There are all sorts of issues like that,” he said.

The tribunals, commissions and inquiries – and their cost:

Dunne Inquiry (body parts): €12 million

Ferns Inquiry (abuse): €2 million

Lourdes Hospital Commission: €3 million

Cervical Scope and Tribunal: €5.8 million

Dublin and Monaghan Bombings Commission: €2.6 million

Certain Matters relating to An Garda Commission: €3.5 million

IBRC Commission: €18 million

Nama (Project Eagle) Commission: €7.8 million

Defence Forces Tribunal (2025 budget): €3.6 million

Dean Lyons (Death) Commission: €1.3 million

Dublin and Cloyne Dioceses Commission (child abuse): €8.8 million