THE 13-year-old Moriarty tribunal "gravy train" should be "ground immediately to a halt" by the government, according to an outspoken Fianna Fáil TD.

Cork East TD Ned O'Keeffe branded the long-running tribunal a "farce" and called for it to be closed immediately.

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune, O'Keefe said, "I think it is outrageous that it is still going on. It has been running for too long and it is a rip-off at a time when the country cannot afford it.

"I would like to see it wound up immediately as it is going nowhere. There should be an in-depth investigation into the Moriarty tribunal carried out by the Public Accounts Committee.

"There is a lesson to be learned by us all from the Moriarty tribunal about tribunals as they are just a gravy train for lawyers and they are not doing what they were set up to do."

O'Keeffe's comments come in the calm of the summer recess but a damning report into the fees paid to lawyers at the tribunal is due out in the autumn.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen told an Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance in June that the cost of the Moriarty tribunal up to the end of May this year was €39.57m. He added that the overall cost of the tribunal cannot be estimated with any degree of accuracy until third-party costs are taken into account.

Judge Michael Moriarty wrote to the Oireachtas in May to indicate that his work was between 80% and 90% completed and that only one witness remained to be called.

The leaders of all of the parties in the Dáil – Brian Cowen, Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore, John Gormley and Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin – took the unprecedented initiative of jointly writing to the tribunal in June.

In the three-paragraph letter they stated that they were "naturally anxious that the tribunal's work would be completed as soon as possible consistent with its mandate".

The Dáil's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is conducting a probe into the Moriarty gravy train that pays some barristers up to €2,500 per day and the results of that report are expected to be available by September.

O'Keeffe has branded the tribunal a "public scandal" and a "farce" that is going nowhere. He added, "I doubt any member of the Oireachtas would have ever voted for the establishment of the Moriarty tribunal if they knew three lawyers would end up getting paid almost €25m."

"The Moriarty Tribunal has become the greatest gravy train in the history of the legal profession in Ireland. At a time when the people of this country are suffering from the worst economic crisis in living memory there are barristers who are being paid up to €2,500 every day, including weekends and public holidays.

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