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THE FINAL REPORT of the Mahon Tribunal was a long time in coming, with years of hearings and hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence considered by a mammoth legal team.
Here, to try and break down the impact of the Tribunal, is a selection of numbers relating to its operation and findings.
5,280 – The number of days between the decision of Dáil Éireann to establish a tribunal examining ‘certain planning matters and payments’. The Dáil passed its motion to establish the tribunal on October 7, 1997.
5 – The number of TDs who voted against establishing the Tribunal. The Socialist Party (Joe Higgins), Green Party (John Gormley, Trevor Sargent), Sinn Féin (Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin) and independent TD Tony Gregory voted against the motion establishing it. The motion itself was put down by Bertie Ahen, the newly-elected Taoiseach.
5 – The number of reports published by the Tribunal. The four interim reports discussed the tribunal’s forthcoming work, the findings relating to Ray Burke and George Redmond.
3,720 – The number of pages in the fifth and final report published on Thursday. The report, a 56 MB download (available here), is 41 times larger than the capacity of a formatted floppy disk, which was a popular method of file-saving when the Tribunal was established.
917 – The total number of days of public hearings held by the Tribunal over its 14 years. The final day of public hearings was in December 2008; the Tribunal has, since then, been compiling its findings.
437 – The total number of witnesses who have been called to give evidence at the Tribunal. They include developers, TDs, other councillors, PR officers and journalists.
99 – The number of days for which Frank Dunlop gave evidence to the Tribunal. He was, by far, its most regular witness – though was described in the final report as being a troublesome and unreliable one.
€247 million – The total (estimated) possible cost of the tribunal, based on estimates from Judge Alan Mahon and the Comptroller and Auditor General. They believe the State’s bill for witnesses’ legal fees could reach €147 million, on top of the €100 million in operational and legal fees that the Tribunal has already run up in its 14 years.
€75,535 - The potential cost, per page, of the final report – dividing the maximum €247 million cost by the 3,270 pages.
€30 million – The amount set aside by the Department of Public Expenditure to cover the costs of any legal bills for which the State is liable. That’s for this year – the Department explains that the other costs could only be incurred in further years when people submit their legal bills.
€5.59 million - The amount paid to the highest-earning member of the Tribunal’s in-house legal team, Patricia Dillon SC. She worked on the Tribunal for over ten years. Two other counsels, Patrick Quinn and Desmond O’Neill, earned over €5 million each for their work.
35 – The total number of barristers, solicitors and paralegal workers who have worked on the Tribunal.
€32,000 – The one-off briefing fee paid to Senior Counsels working on the Tribunal. Junior counsels were paid €21,000.
€2,250 – The pay for senior counsels for each day of work on the Tribunal. Junior counsels earned €1,500 per day. These rates were increased in 2002; before then, daily fees were set at €1,714 and €1,143 for senior and junior counsels respectively.
£165,214.50 - The total amount of lodgements to accounts controlled by Bertie Ahern for which the Tribunal rejected Ahern’s explanation.
$0 – The amount charged by the FBI to perform a forensic analysis on the redacted diaries of Frank Dunlop.
11 – The number of councillors against whom findings of corruption have previously been made, on foot of tribunal business. Only six were named due to various legal restrictions; three were from Fianna Fáil, one each from Fine Gael and Labour, and one independent.
3 – The number of times Liam Lawlor was jailed for contempt of court, for refusing to follow High Court orders to co-operate with the Tribunal. On the third such instance, he was temporarily released to attend a Dáil debate calling for his resignation as a TD.
5 – The number of senior Fianna Fáil figures who the report says knew of Tom Gilmartin’s £50,000 donation to Pádraig Flynn – solicited as a donation to Fianna Fáil, but which Flynn kept for himself. These figures included Ahern, who knew of the donation in 1989, but who did not raise queries about it for almost a decade afterward.
977 – The number of times the words ‘corrupt’ or ‘corruption’ (or variants of them) appear in the Tribunal’s final report.
11 – The number of hours between the publication of the final report, shortly before 10am last night, and the announcement from Fianna Fáil’s officer board that it would propose the expulsion of Bertie Ahern, Pádraig Flynn and three other councillors.
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As usual trying to put a good spin on Ireland’s figures. Most of our improvement is due to “scambridge” hiring interns.
Most countries have internships. My friend is doing one in London.
And most of Germanys low figure is accountable due to the fact that they don’t have a minimum hourly wage – I’m not sure if it is the same in Austria. This means people can be working, legally, for nothing. Just another way that a government is trying to hide it’s unemployment rate.
Although, some quick googling to fact check shows that Germany have actually agreed to introduce a minimum wage by next year – Let’s see if they keep the same low unemployment levels with that.
Bobby, the difference between an internship and the ‘job’bridge interns is that any employer can hire as many job bridge interns as they want, pay them nothing, and then let them go after the time, and then just hire another poor soul to do the exact same job. No promise to keep them on, and in a lot of cases you see, no real value to the internships offered (stacking shelves, washing cars etc.).
Exactly, it’s mostly completely taken advantage of.
It is a crap system, but it’s the same in England, graduates doing interns stacking shelves. Recently a graduate was sent to work in a pound shop by the jobcentre to stack shelves. She took them to court and won?
So just because they are taking complete advantage of young unemployed people in Britain, it’s grand that we’re doing the same here?
Nope, I never said that, just letting you know you’re not alone.
Ah sorry, my misunderstanding. I thought you were just trying to justify the system because it happens elsewhere.
Actually, I believe Germany has just introduced a minimum wage (€8.50) in the last few weeks.
White Fang, yes I know and linked to an article about it (as it was news to me until I looked it up) in my post above.
Maybe people should look up the definition of internships. Then compare them to what happens on the jobsbridge scam!
Sorry Dave, I completely missed that!
@alan Most of our improvement is due to high end IT, Pharma and Finance jobs. Basic maths kiddo (which ironically is the reason you wouldn’t get a job in any of those sectors.)
Every job in FAS/Solas is for this scam, and scam it is when local auctioneers & solicitors advertising for staff promising a good internship, funded by money stolen from private pension accounts, most vile Government in the history of the state.l
@Bobby
I don’t know if it’s the same story, but I read about a woman with a history degree who was serving as a volunteer intern in a museum.
But her local job centre told her she couldn’t volunteer as that meant she wasn’t “available for work”. They then promptly put her to work in Dealz. And she would lose her dole payment if she refused to take the “job”. So she ended up working a 40 hour week against her will for approx £70.
Dealz wins. Job centre wins. Everyone but the poor woman who was working towards a more permanent placement in the museum wins.
Thanks for that Tom.
The BBC said last week, 26 million people unemployed in the EU
Bobby what possible reason could Eurostat have for manipulation of the true figures.
26 million unemployed in the EU, 18 million in the Eurozone.
Does anybody have an accurate figure as to what our unemployment rate would look like without the old immigration release valve? I imagine we’d be looking at close to the same rate as Greece. We sure are lucky that we speak English and can ship out all those workers for whom there are no jobs.
18 million jobless in the EU and still hundreds of thousands on non EU migrants are allowed enter Europe looking for work every year…madness
I’d love to know out of that 18.9 million how many are people that never want to work . Freeloaders if you will.
With any luck Gilmore will be out of a job soon.
Going by some of the regular trolls….probably 18 million or so..sure who,d want to work when you can live in luxury on the scratcher..and the sort of tripe these idiots post.
The people out of work need help people like you gay only make the situation worse !!
Who are the freeloaders to which you refer? Politicans such as our own, spineless lot? or people in long term unemployment on benefits who require said benefits to survive? We know who gets the blame these days and its the latter.
Yes its so much fun been on the dole and trying to scrape by on 100euro a week…madness!.and you have the cheek to call us all freeloaders?.funnily enough most of us would rather be working and earning some sort of living for ourselves as opposed to living on peanuts!.
well said Denise. the contempt is disgraceful
Thank you Sean, I just get tired of hearing how we are all lazy so-and-so’s when its not the case at all…i got laid off a couple of weeks back simply because there wasnt enough work and have had no luck with finding another job
At 5000 jobs a month Happy Gilmore will have it sorted in 300 years. On a side note… That labour, 70000 jobs ad (blatant lie) at the bottom is making me sick.
I am glad to see those good for nothing screw balls in Leinster house got them self A3Job .
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