Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We should write to the Department of the Taoiseach about this. As Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, I have serious concerns that there are bills of hundreds of millions of euro being landed on the taxpayer for these inquiries that take years and, in some cases, decades to carry out, and no one ever prosecuted at the end. The findings are made and they go onto a shelf. The inquiry into Siteserv will now join Moriarty and all of the other tribunals on the shelf. The bill was paid. The only benefit is to the legal profession, which charges huge fees. The whole Siteserv thing and the Moriarty and other various tribunals may have scandals within them. From the taxpayers' point of view, they may have something to say perhaps after we send over what we have done. However, there is a huge issue here in how we are going about investigating these. There has to be a better way. I certainly would like to hear expert opinion on this. Is there a better way of carrying out these inquiries?

Should they be referred in the first instance to An Garda Síochána? Is the Garda white collar crime unit, which was set up a number of years ago to deal with white collar crime, the body that should be looking at these in the first instance? I do not think we can sit back as the Committee of Public Accounts. There will be another of these, and then another, over the next couple of years, regardless of who is in government. If tens or hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers' money is spent, what will it be spent for? Will it be to gather dust on a shelf? When this came out last week, I thought, "Here we go again". As Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, I will not stand over this.