John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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That is the end and I have a couple of questions. I agree with the last statement that we cannot legislate in a vacuum and we will not. Whatever comes before this committee in terms of Committee Stage of the legislation will get a rocky passage if the issues we have shared here today are not dealt with, and I say that with respect to all of those who were involved in IBRC or NAMA. I am particularly concerned that there may be a rush on this legislation before the end of the year, and I flag it for the Minister that there may be difficulties with that, in the interest of people generally who were caught up in all of what happened way back then.

On IBRC, I am concerned that we have not learned from what happened within Anglo Irish Bank, IBRC and NAMA. To learn from anything that happened, the protection of the documents would be paramount. What someone else might say is not a valuable document could be a very valuable document to somebody else, and I made this point about the recent Charleton tribunal and other tribunals. There should be an obligation in any legislation to ensure all of the documents are stored, kept, digitised or whatever because we must learn from the mistakes of the past. Certainly, in exchanges like this, we can say we have learned so much, but there is so much more to be learned, for Government officials, too, who deal with this on a day-to-day basis, to see what went wrong.

I refer to IBRC and a concern I have. During the liquidation when customers had to deal with the issues that arose, my belief is they were not treated fairly. They were part of a stampede on one side to try to resolve matters and part of a stampede on the other side, the banks' side, to prevent anything from being found out about what was going on in the banks. Because of what went on during that period, it was difficult for the courts, banks and everyone else to get a clear line of understanding as to what was going on. Even in the courts it was very difficult to follow the thread in terms of how people were losing their homes or how people were being dealt with in terms of their business.

In Anglo, four partners got a loan, two partners were excluded from the process and the money was transferred from Anglo to the personal accounts of the other two.

Every effort made by the two that were excluded, through the bank and the appropriate channels, was met with rejection because the liquidators of IBRC had all the cards and could choose not to extend time for consideration of a particular case or that the case was closed and there was nothing to see. The two that were excluded, when contesting those decisions, were just railroaded. I find that hard to take because in all of this there is a learning curve or process. We have to learn and do things better. There are also people that got burned badly. Some fought that and some, when they fought it, found that they were confronted with further questions, with the only purpose of those questions being to shut down their attempts to get to the truth.

What guarantee can Mr. Carville give this committee that in the context of the legislation, people who had a grievance with the bank can have their affairs dealt with properly and the paperwork relating to their accounts made available to them so that they can discover if there was wrongdoing within the banks in their case? That kind of process has to be made available to people who still feel they were hard done by in relation to this. They have gone to the Central Bank. I am speaking about one case but if there is one, there are others. They have gone to the Central Bank. which was unhelpful, I have to say. They were told to go to An Garda Síochána and we all know where that leads. I want to find out if, in cases like this, there is potential within this legislation to have some eminent person appointed to deal with cases that are still unresolved, someone who will get to the bottom of the problem for the customers of Anglo and afterwards, IBRC. That is absolutely essential to get to the truth. Every effort that I have made through the Central Bank and here, through this committee, has failed. The people that I am talking about have been failed by the State. I am not prepared to look at legislation like this and just give it a nod. I do not accept it. The case has to be made for people like this who deserve for someone to have a look, independently, at everything they are saying. I want to know how I go about that.