Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Yes. In the first paragraph it states "in so far as the Department indicates that it is not, at present, undertaking any particular research on international best practice in respect of Tribunals of Inquiry and Commissions of Investigation". There is a lot of discussion about this, but no action. We need an effective way of having inquiries. The commission of investigation model was selected because the tribunals were a very expensive approach, and there were a lot of lawyers involved. The commission of investigation was designed to "de-lawyer" it. The most recent one was obviously the Cregan commission of investigation into the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. The final report was published this week, and that was set up as a commission of investigation. There was bespoke legislation which really widened the scope of a commission of investigation, partly because there would have been privilege around banking and other areas. It has the effect of introducing legal teams again. This committee may well put something on the work programme regarding several Departments, including the Department of the Taoiseach, where there have been various inquiries. It may well be worth selecting some of those with a view to looking back and seeing what approach should be taken.

I know that the Social Democrats, as a party, put forward a proposal back in 2015 that there should be a standing inquiry. I note that is one of the recommendations by Mr. Justice Brian Cregan with regard to the most recent commission of investigation. The Taoiseach made the point that a better approach would be to go to the Corporate Enforcement Authority. I am all in favour of catching things in real time and negating the need to have inquiries in the first place. There would not be the capacity within the Corporate Enforcement Authority to take that on, unless there was a commitment to really beef it up.

This is an area in which we could do a meaningful piece of work by picking out three or four different Departments and ending up with a report which would go to one of the Departments - perhaps the Department of the Taoiseach - to try to get the ball rolling on making some recommendations for the future. We need an effective mechanism for inquiries. There will probably always be a need for inquiries, but we need to do it in a way that is timely and cost-effective. We also need to look at what recommendations have been made in the past following the conclusion of some of those tribunals and inquiries