Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was going to come to that, but I will come to it now. I will clear up the matter of illegality. I know the Deputy mentioned illegality. There was no suggestion on our part that we were in search of illegality at all. That was not our job and it was not the judge's job. My guess is that if there was anything like that, it would be referred elsewhere or picked up elsewhere. The Deloitte report contained 25 recommendations on corporate governance. It has been embraced by the OCI. I think this is one of the unrecognised benefits of this report and maybe it should be recognised. It has said that it will implement all 25 of those recommendations. That is a pretty good commitment. The fact that they had to be made is a very stark indictment of the way the OCI was being run. That the organisation has accepted the recommendations should be recognised since it is prepared to put the past behind it. The Deloitte report is very radical. I think members all have a copy of it now. It specifically addresses the problems that arose in the OCI.

Have I confidence in the IOC? I do not really have a great deal of experience of it. My dealings with it were restricted to meeting Mr. de Kepper in Brazil. He seemed to be efficient, on top of things, reasonable and prepared. He was very happy to meet and talk to us about the independence of the inquiry that we intended to establish one way or the other. He was sympathetic with it. I thought we made progress when we met him, having met a brick wall with Mr. Hickey on the issue of independence. I thought he was looking to progress the matter. There is now an ethics committee of which Mr. Ban Ki-moon is a member. It is certainly symbolically important at the moment, but hopefully practically important as well.

The Deputy suggested the possibility - he can correct me if I am wrong because I am talking from memory of what was said yesterday - that it may be a time to stand back and just let things happen; in other words, not to have an inquiry at all.