Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Those reports are generally accepted. Maybe somebody else will dispute them. I have not sat down and spent nights and days reading through them either. The costs of this process have escalated into hundreds of millions of euro. The process issues a report after many years. It gets a day of coverage by the media, which is fair enough, since the media are doing their job. That is it, then the report goes onto a shelf. There has to be a better way to do this. What models are used internationally? Are there better ways to do this? Are there less expensive ways? Might a lesser inquiry have a time-limited first-stage examination of the facts available, by a legal person and an accountant, or another team of suitably qualified people, who could then decide whether to make a recommendation that this should go to An Garda Síochána or to a commission of inquiry? Instead, we have these lengthy processes with a bill that potentially runs to over €100 million. From the point of view of the public money of the taxpayer, when there are people in Mountjoy for not paying their television licence, where they are brought for one day before being sent home again, or for shoplifting, maybe for stealing cigarettes from a shop because they have an addiction, or drink worth €50 from an off-licence-----