Free lunch

The two senior lawyers in the Moriarty Tribunal earned €2,500 per day up to March 2009 when they were affected by the government's decision to reduce the fees of all professionals contracted to the state by 8%.

We've previously covered how the lawyers were paid this rate, which is more than is paid to lawyers in the Mahon Tribunal, by benefiting from a typo made in the Taoiseach's office.

Freedom of Information documents showed the tribunal lawyers believed they deserved to be paid that rate because of the large amount of work they do and the small size of their legal team compared to other tribunals.

In 2002 the lawyers commissioned Colm McCarthy, whose more recent work includes An Bord Snip Nua's report, to demonstrate how their pay rates hadn't increased in line with the pay of judges and politicians.

As it turns out the lawyers and judge were enjoying another benefit from the state - some €57,000 worth of lunches and coffee since 1997. The claims were approved by the Department of Taoiseach and detailed in 12 years worth of documents released last week.

In contrast to what was allowed for the tribunal I was talking to a public servant today who told me a colleague tried to order a coffee machine for their office recently. A proposal was made but the line-manager refused and pointed out that there was a coffee shop around the corner. Presumably they won't be allowed to charge the state for their Starbucks either.

Maybe there is a special rule that allows tribunal lawyers to charge their coffees and lunches to the state but the Department of Taoiseach wasn't able to confirm this last week.

The FOI documents also revealed that the tribunal paid over €17,000 to Kate MacMillan, an English solicitor. The money was paid in 2007 to MacMillan for her one day of giving evidence on commission in London about her knowledge of the Denis O'Brien and Doncaster Rovers affair.

That's a lot of sandwiches-worth for giving evidence for a few hours.

I'll try an put the FOI documents up online once I have time to get them scanned.