A series of answers to Dail questions put down by Fine Gael's justice and law reform spokesman, Jim O'Keeffe, provide the fullest picture yet of just how lucrative the tribunals have been for barristers and solicitors since 1997.

The Flood/Mahon tribunal, which has been running for close to a decade, tops the league of legal fees. Of its total costs of 59m, 38m consists of legal costs, representing almost two-thirds of overall expenditure on the tribunal to date.

The Flood/Mahon tribunal legal team has accounted for costs of 31.6m since its establishment (including almost 6m last year), while "third party legal costs" came to 6.18m since 1997. External counsel representing the tribunal have been paid 310,394.59, most of which was paid this year.

Next on the list is the other long-running inquiry at Dublin Castle, the Moriarty tribunal, which has yet to produce a report. Its legal fees are half those of Flood/Mahon, coming in at 'just' 19.3m since 1997. The legal fees, which account for 77% of the total costs, have grown every year, bar one (2001). And it looks as if legal costs for the tribunal will top 3m this year for the first time. By the end of September, legal costs for 2006 had reached 2.68m.

The figures show that the forerunner to Moriarty, the McCracken Tribunal, completed in 1997, cost a total of 6.65m of which legal costs were 865,193 and third-party legal costs were 5.65m.

Three tribunals under the auspices of the Department of Justice . . . Morris, Barr and Smithwick . . . have cost the taxpayer a combined total of 21m in legal fees. This figure represented 55% of the total cost of the tribunals, a considerably lower percentage than seen in other tribunals.

The Department of Health has had responsibility for four inquiries: the Lindsay tribunal, the Dunne inquiry, the Lourdes Hospital inquiry and the Ferns inquiry. Although the department has yet to provide a breakdown of legal costs, the total combined cost of those inquiries was 70m. Estimating, very conservatively, that 50% of those costs were legal costs, that suggests a figure of at least 35m.

The Department of Education is responsible for sponsoring the legislation governing the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. A sum of 34m had been spent on the inquiry up to the end of September last. In its answer to O'Keeffe's questions, the department did not give a breakdown of this figure, apart from saying it included "the commission's pay and administrative costs, legal costs and the department's legal fees".

It is impossible to determine what percentage of the 34m is accounted for by legal costs, but the sum is likely to run to several million euro at least.

Commenting on the figures this weekend, Jim O'Keeffe accused the government of adopting a "careless, profligate approach" to the tribunals, which were allowed to run and run. He stressed he was "not anti-tribunal" and said many of the tribunals had done a lot of good.

O'Keeffe singled out the Flood/Mahon tribunal, saying the inquiry into planning was "badly needed". The impact of Flood/Mahon had "hopefully minimised corruption in the planning process", he said, adding that other tribunals had exposed wrongdoing and people who defrauded the country.

O'Keeffe also emphasised that many of the tribunal lawyers were "top-class people". However, he added: "I'm concerned that the figures are too high and there is no apparent effort to keep them in check".

He noted that, while then finance minister Charlie McCreevy introduced a system of reduced fees for lawyers at tribunals, they haven't been applied yet.

"It's like St Augustine: Let us be prudent but not just yet, " O'Keeffe said.

"God bless Charlie, who told us he'd deal with the fees issue. It's a case of 'a little done, a lot more to do'. The tribunals have just rolled on and the figures are still clocking up, " he said.

Lessons had to be learned from the current tribunals, unlike the Beef tribunal from which "lessons weren't drawn". The setting up for tribunals was often "an easy way out for the government of the day, acceding to public demands", O'Keeffe said, adding that other options should be looked at, including appointing a High Court inspector or a commission of investigation.

The Cork South West deputy, who is a qualified solicitor, also said there was no reason an element of competition couldn't be brought to tribunals.

"Why shouldn't lawyers have to tender for business at the tribunals? If the board of public works was putting up a boat house, it would need to get three separate tenders. Yet here you have millions upon millions being spent [without any tendering], " he said.

O'Keeffe also said governments had to be very careful that the terms of reference for tribunals were "very tightly drawn" and said there should "also be an insistence that they report to the Oireachtas every six months".