Professor Gillian Morris, chairman David Hogg, centre, and John Lee. (Pictures by Peter Frankland, 0873019)

THE Emergency Powers Authority meeting which agreed a pay deal that got the airport firefighters back to work in May was not an official gathering – but it did not matter anyway.

HM Procureur Howard Roberts was the first witness to give evidence on day four of the firefighters’ tribunal of inquiry at Les Cotils yesterday.

Mr Roberts, who was HM Comptroller at the time, said that when he was asked to attend a meeting on 26 May it was on the understanding that it was a ‘shadow meeting’.

Nevertheless, the following day a press release was issued by the Policy Council describing it as an EPA meeting and further described by the chief minister as a ‘shadow EPA’.

‘It was a meeting of personnel who in some circumstances could consider implementing emergency powers, but it was not a formal meeting as such,’ said Mr Roberts yesterday.

He said overlaps in the mandates of the Public Services Department and the Public Sector Remuneration Committee meant either could legally have agreed to extra money for firefighters.

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