The TDs and Senators in Ballyfermot College of Education on Saturday morning found themselves way outside their comfort zone when they gathered – Band-Aid style – to record their version of Bridge Over Troubled Water for Pieta House, the suicide awareness organisation.

The Minister was replying to Dublin Mid West TD Derek Keating (FG) who said the reorganisation of routes was not working. He had attended many consultation meetings, he said, and his abiding memory was how the issues raised by people were not addressed in the consultation process.

A question by Fine Gael TD Derek Keating last week revealed that the cumulative cost of tribunals since 1987 up to the end of August 2011 was €315m. This did not, however, include further putative third party costs of up to half-a-billion euro.

Public expenditure minister Brendan Howlin, in a written response to Fine Gael TD Derek Keating last week, said that the cumulative cost of all tribunals from 1987 to the end of August 2011 was €315.8million.

Fine Gael TD Derek Keating said that the letter was completely “over the top”.

“As an active and practising Catholic, I am appalled,” he said. “Enda Kenny’s
speech in the Dail last week not only gave leadership in addressing the problem
of child abuse in Ireland but, in my opinion, he actually kept people in the
church.”

Members of the judiciary are resisting reductions in their pay and changes to their pension entitlements.

But they benefit from a substantial array of expenses, ranging from allowances for wigs of €2,195 and for frock coats of €745.

Those in financial institutions who had failed in their duty of care to shareholders and depositors should be subject to legal scrutiny