The row over which government agency should cover a €644,000 expenses bill run up by the Mahon tribunals’ three judges has intensified.
Judges Alan Mahon, Gerald Keys and Mary Faherty are all unassigned circuit court judges who have been based almost full time at the tribunal in Dublin Castle since 2003.
Had they been assigned to the capital at the beginning of hearings, they would not have been entitled to claim travel and subsistence payments while working for the tribunal, but this never happened.
To date, the Courts Service has paid the judges’ expenses. It is now trying to recoup the money from the Department of the Environment which is resisting.
The department, which sponsors the tribunal, only became aware expenses were being claimed in 2009 when the Courts Service asked it to cover the costs.
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New documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show the Courts Service is now arguing strongly against the department’s position.
It has told environment officials that the state is responsible for assigning judges and therefore the department should pay.
In an email sent last year from Marian O’Driscoll, an assistant principal in the department, to the Courts Service, she said it “seems odd that it would be [the department] who would be supposed to be taking the initiative in deciding how judges would be assigned?”
O’Driscoll said the department had no involvement in the tribunal judges’ salaries and allowances from 1997 through to 2009.
She asked: “Who would have decided to assign these judges to the Mahon tribunal in the first place, do you know?”
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In response, the Courts Service said a resolution tabled by the minister of the environment to the House of the Oireachtas in 2003 appointed the three judges.
The email from John Cleere, a principal officer in the Courts Service, said it was possible there was a government decision to appoint the judges to the tribunal.
“Certainly the minister for the environment did all the paperwork to give effect to it,” said Cleere. “The Courts Service had no involvement in it.”