The Opposition has said that the Government should give a greater role to the Oireachtas when it is establishing commissions of investigation under a Bill published yesterday.
The Bill provides that such commissions could be established as a cost-saving alternative to tribunals of inquiry. It was agreed by the Cabinet on Tuesday.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said that there was no intention to establish a single permanent body to conduct investigations. Individual commissions would be established on a case-by-case basis and more than one commission could sit at any one time.
Commissions will be required to establish the factual position in relation to an inquiry. If it is unable to establish facts, a commission may be followed by a separate tribunal of inquiry. Such a tribunal will be able to use evidence heard by commissions.
Mr McDowell said such bodies "will not replace or alter in any way the work of the tribunals of inquiry already under way or any other inquiry or investigation mechanism already available".
This was a clear reference to the Flood tribunal and suggestions last week by Mr McDowell and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, that some of its modules might be heard by commissions of investigation. Mr Ahern subsequently said that investigations already started by the Flood team would not be heard in private.
With the Government expected to give priority to the Bill in the autumn, it is thought that the first such commission could be set up before the end of the year. It will examine allegations of child abuse by clerics in the Catholic Church in Dublin.
The Bill enables the minister seeking an investigation or the Government to set the terms of reference of a commission.
However, Fine Gael TD Mr Jim O'Keeffe said it was "important to retain a central role for the Oireachtas, as opposed to the government of the day, in all decisions relating to the establishment and definition of any future inquiry".
Fine Gael said that the publication of a statement by Mr O'Keeffe was not linked to the fact that its justice spokesman, Mr John Deasy, voted with the Government yesterday on the Immigration Bill. Mr Deasy was meeting the party leader, Mr Enda Kenny, last night to discuss this vote.
Labour said that it would examine the Bill constructively. However, its justice spokesman, Mr Joe Costello, said that the Government was only a recent convert to the necessity of cutting the cost of investigations. He also expressed disappointment that the Government appeared to have abandoned the option of conducting investigations by parliamentary committees.
Unlike tribunals of inquiry, commissions will not necessarily be chaired by a judge. For example, it will be open to the minister seeking an investigation to appoint an accountant to investigate a financial matter.
The objective of the Government is to minimise the cost of public inquiries by having evidence heard in private. Commissions will be empowered to compel witnesses to appear before them and to seize documents from witnesses.
In addition, commissions will be obliged to issue general guidelines on witnesses' costs at the outset of an investigation. The Bill says that such guidelines "may restrict the type of legal services or fees for which payment may be made and otherwise limit the extent to which legal costs may be so paid".
The relevant minister will be empowered to seek interim reports from investigations. While the final report of a commission will normally be published, it can omit information which would identify witnesses if it was not in their interest to have their identity made public.
