John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This issue has been back and forth with members and I think Mr. Moran understands how people feel about it, but, considering what happened in this country when it comes to non-regulation of the banking sector, there was an imperative to know what was going on within banks. It was imperative to know how a bank that was State-owned was operating and how it was dealing with what were effectively State assets. The excuse given was related to the very conservative viewpoint of the commission when it came to commercial independence. I do not accept this and the Department should not have accepted it. There should have been far greater ongoing scrutiny when it came to the operation of IBRC which, as the Chairman said, pretty much ignored the Department for a number of years. It took a member of the public to contact the Department. Only when that member of the public contacted it did it act. That is the problem. The Department then had to react and figured out that the decisions being made at senior levels within IBRC were questionable. That is where we are. Ultimately, what happened was that the Minister and the Department questioned and were given assurances by IBRC at a meeting that everything that had taken place was above board and carried out properly. There was no scrutiny from day one. The Department's attitude towards oversight within IBRC was coloured by an acceptance of the commission's very conservative viewpoint. That is where the mistake was made and there needs to be an acceptance of this.