{"id":245725,"date":"2026-01-15T08:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/245725\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T08:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:25:07","slug":"moriarty-tribunal-enters-30th-year-racking-up-e78m-in-costs-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/245725\/","title":{"rendered":"Moriarty tribunal enters 30th year, racking up \u20ac78m in costs \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Moriarty tribunal <\/a>has entered its 30th year after racking up more than \u20ac78m in costs, prolonging the work of the payments to politicians inquiry <\/a>established in 1997 that published its final report in 2011.<\/p>\n

The tribunal took office <\/a>when Bertie Ahern was taoiseach in September 1997 to examine payments to former Fianna F\u00e1il taoiseach Charles Haughey and former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry. <\/p>\n

Mr Lowry, an Independent TD since 1997, leads the group of eight Regional Independent TDs who support the Fianna F\u00e1il-Fine Gael Coalition. <\/p>\n

In the 15 years since its final report was released, the tribunal has remained in office, dealing with litigation and making determinations on legal fees for third-party witnesses. <\/p>\n

The most recent payment was in October, when an unnamed witness received \u20ac599,939. <\/p>\n

The Department of the Taoiseach said the beneficiary\u2019s name was not known to it and no information was available from the State Claims Agency (SCA), which paid the money. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe SCA does not comment on individual cases,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n

Businessman Denis O\u2019Brien is known to have received \u20ac5.8 million for some of his tribunal legal fees in June from the claims agency. Only the amount paid \u2013 and not the beneficiary \u2013 was set out by the Government and there was no claims agency information. <\/p>\n

The tribunal\u2019s final report found Mr Lowry \u201csecured the winning\u201d of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition for Mr O\u2019Brien\u2019s Esat Digifone when he was minister for communications. Mr O\u2019Brien and Mr Lowry have always rejected such findings. <\/p>\n

As of December 31st, 2025, the cost to the State of the tribunal was \u20ac78,021,645 \u2013 and 62 cent.<\/p>\n

The tribunal\u2019s three-decade lifespan has spanned the terms of six taoisigh: Mr Ahern, Brian Cowen, Enda Kenny, Leo Varadkar, Simon Harris and Miche\u00e1l Martin and three presidents \u2013 Mary McAleese, Michael D Higgins and Catherine Connolly. <\/p>\n

In the same period, there have been six chief justices: the late Liam Hamilton, Ronan Keane, the late John Murray, Susan Denham, Frank Clarke and Donal O\u2019Donnell, the incumbent. <\/p>\n

The tribunal is in place to this day, although the Government indicated that the long process of closing its operations may soon reach a conclusion. <\/p>\n

\u201cArrangements for the full and final winddown of the tribunal are largely complete and are expected to be finalised in the coming months,\u201d said the department.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the department declined to say whether Mr Justice Moriarty was still tribunal chairman.<\/p>\n

The department separately refused Freedom of Information access to 1,699 pages of records on tribunal issues filed between December 2024 and October 2025. <\/p>\n

The records comprised extensive department emails with the tribunal, as well as internal notes on wind-down arrangements and costs. <\/p>\n

The department said 2026 funding for the tribunal was \u20ac1 million, a sum it cast as \u201can 85 per cent reduction on the allocation for 2025\u2033.<\/p>\n

More than a year has passed since An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na completed its criminal investigation into the tribunal\u2019s findings and sent a file to Director of Public Prosecutions Catherine Pierse.<\/p>\n

Ms Pierse\u2019s office declined to address queries on the case: \u201cThe Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions does not comment on individual cases, including status updates, information regarding decisions, etc.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Moriarty tribunal has entered its 30th year after racking up more than \u20ac78m in costs, prolonging the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,31678,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-245725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-michael-lowry","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}