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.

AIB Clifden

As we published yesterday in The Sunday Times AIB was unable to answer any questions about the circumstances of the $60m loan guarantee letter. Instead the bank announced that since we published our first story on BMB and this letter the bank had begun its own investigation in to the matter.

This story came about after we received a letter to The Sunday Times asking us to investigate alleged "shifty dealings" in AIB Clifden. Such tip-offs are always welcome so by all means keep them coming. My email is mark.tighe "at" sunday-times.ie or by post: 4th Floor, Bishop's Square, Redmond's Hill, Dublin 2.

Bankers and Developers

Irish banks have been criticised for being too close to some developers and property investors. I don't know if any banker was as intimately involved with a project as a certain Declan Maher, the manager of AIB's Clifden branch in Co Galway. We covered this story last week.

In 2005 Maher and Kevin Barry, an accountant, were busy looking for investors for a land deal in which the BMB Partnership had invested in near Disney World in Florida. BMB was a partnership involving Barry and Maher.

BMB teamed up with with Buena Vista Corp, an American firm for this project. As well as raising $15m from Irish investors BMB had to ensure it had a bank ready to roll in with another $60m to fund the building of 100 villas known as Gables on the Green.

Which bank did BMB get its $60m letter of guarantee from? Well it was none other than AIB. And AIB Clifden to boot. Maher kindly authored a letter of guarantee for his business partner. See it here.

Maher wouldn't return calls last week. Barry did. He said BMB were not serious about using AIB and there was no conflict of interest for Maher in writing this letter.

I've asked AIB whether it approves of bank managers issuing such letters to their business partners. No answer so far.

Meanwhile the Irish Emerald Gables consortium, which consists of a few of these Philadelphia registered companies, is trying to secure its $15m investment through the Florida courts. The Buena Vista Corp hasn't built any of the promised 100 villas due to a number of issues. Both sides are blaming the other for this. Members of the $15m Irish syndicate include Josie Conneely, a former Fianna Fail councillor, and the late John Cusack, of Cusack Homes.