Lawyers working on the latest investigation by the planning tribunal are to be paid the full rate of up to €2,250 a day, in spite of earlier indications that a reduced fee rate would apply.
The tribunal has been forced to defer the start of public hearings in this latest module, concerning the payment of £30,000 by Fitzwilton Ltd to former minister Ray Burke in 1989.
This follows a High Court decision last week to grant Fitzwilton an injunction preventing the hearings going ahead. A full hearing of the company's challenge to the inquiry will be heard next month.
When hearings do get under way, senior counsel with the tribunal will be paid the full rate of €2,250, the Department of Environment has confirmed, rather than the €900 a day announced by former minister for finance Charlie McCreevy last year.
In subsequent negotiations with the tribunal, the Government agreed to defer the introduction of reduced fees to March 2007, when the tribunal is expected to have completed its work.
However, it was widely believed this extension was given only in respect of work on existing modules of inquiry.
Speaking last year before the new reduced fees were announced, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the reduced fee system could come into operation for existing tribunals when they open up new chapters or modules in their investigations.
It is unclear what the tribunal will do next, now that its three main areas of inquiry are blocked by legal challenges.
Hearings into allegations of corruption at Quarryvale in west Dublin in the early 1990s are scheduled to begin in November.
However, this is dependent on the tribunal reaching agreement with one of the main witnesses, developer Owen O'Callaghan, over the release of documents. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court backed Mr O'Callaghan's demand for access to these files.
Separate hearings into the Jackson Way lands at Carrickmines and a series of transactions involving former Fianna Fáil TD Liam Lawlor have also been delayed by legal challenges. Although the tribunal won the case taken by an owner of Jackson Way, John Caldwell, he is expected to appeal this decision.
The tribunal has sat for no more than a handful of days since last February.
