Politics

State spends €517m on public inquiries since 1997

The cost of tribunals and commissions of investigation has totalled more than half a billion euro in the last 25 years

Judge Alan Mahon: led a tribunal into planning permissions and land rezoning issues in the Dublin County Council area which cost more than €142m. Picture: Rollingnews.ie

The government has spent more than half a billion euro on public inquiries since 1997, new figures show.

Correspondence provided to the Dáil’s public accounts committee (PAC) shows that between tribunals and commissions of inquiry, the cost to the state has risen to €517.5 million.

Since 1997, the government has established seven tribunals of inquiry, according to the data, which was supplied to the PAC by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

The cumulative ...