Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Here is the difficulty with all of it. This is the first cut at dealing with the issues, which is welcome. During the process, it transpired that an auditor within the Central Bank had fallen foul of the process. Nobody disputes the fact that the person resisted removing, amending or omitting elements of his or her work from the report. Deloitte judged whether management was justified in it. It is worrying in itself. It came late to the process, and the controversy emerged during the process. The real question is whether the whistleblower was punished, directly or indirectly, as a result of the position he or she took in carrying out his or her professional duties. It is a fundamental question that must be answered. The whistleblower believes he or she was punished for resisting the removal, omission or amendment of findings from the report. Although I cannot definitively prove it is true, there is a body of documentation that echoes the whistleblower's concerns.

Deputy Ross has hit the nail on the head regarding the pattern around whistleblowers. The big brick wall seems to be that while one can ask the questions, one has no right to any answer or any form of reasonable transparency from the Central Bank. The Central Bank is independent, for very good reasons, as set out in the treaties as part of the euro system. However, these are matters of internal governance, best practice and decent standards. It is unacceptable that Members of the Oireachtas cannot ask questions and get answers on simple compliance issues such as this. If it is no big deal, if everything is okay and there is nothing for any of us to be concerned about, there should be no difficulty with the Central Bank providing its final report to the committee and providing representatives to talk to us about the process and explain why, in this tranche of the investigation, the results are partially compliant, partially compliant, partially compliant, compliant in one case, non-compliant and partially compliant.

That is not good enough. I am sorry if that offends the sensitivities of the Central Bank but it is not good enough after everything that has transpired and after all of the testimony that has been heard at the banking inquiry. I would think we could agree on that.

I suggest again that we write to the Central Bank and look for this report. I also suggest that we put the bank on notice that, remit or no remit, we would like it to voluntarily, outside of the question of remit and its usual form, come before the committee to talk to us about this material.