Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Well, I think the decision by the former finance ... the late Brian Lenihan, to put in somebody of Patrick Honohan's acknowledged international standing in terms of regulation I think was major decision. It broke this automatic entitlement that was there for Secretaries General of the Department of Finance to pass on to automatically ... it seems to me, automatically becoming Governors of the Central Bank. I think that didn't help in terms of the incestuousness and so on. I think the structural changes that he has made are far more effective than was the situation at the time of the crash. I think the changes that have taken place in this House, for example, if you look at how the ... as you know, as a member of the committee, I'm struck even by coming back now to see how the present day finance committee structures its business and discharges its role as compared to what was there in the past and, of course, it's not long ago since there was not a finance committee in place at all.

I think in terms of the report referred to earlier that I prepared for the public accounts committee, you know, there may be an argument for further structural reform within the finance committee to put in place a specific budget committee, provided it were properly resourced. It would have to be resourced because you can only ask Members of the House to do so much. I mean, the variety of pressures that come on them and responses that they must make to their constituency is such that there is only so much they can ... and the expertise needs to be there. So I think, you know, we've all learned, I hope, a great deal from this crash and one suspects that academia will be still writing books about it in 25 years' time. So hopefully the fact that we all ... I shouldn't say all but if there are people who, unlike myself, knew that the financial system was at risk, we didn't hear from them at the time. They kept it a well-guarded secret.