Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

It is extraordinary that the Minister impatiently looks at his watch when we perform the task of questioning the Executive during one of the few opportunities we have to so do. I appreciate that he may see the world differently since entering Government. I also understand that business must be attended to and that the tight schedule of the House makes it difficult for Ministers to have legislation debated on the floor of the House. However, the Minister has been niggling about the Order of Business consistently recently and shown that he is completely oblivious of how he behaved in Opposition. He ought to be grateful this Bill is before the House today. If it was not for the fact that the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis is being held tonight, the Dáil would not be sitting today and would not have sat until 7 p.m. last night. It is fortuitous that the senior party in Government is facilitating the Minister with this opportunity.

As Deputy Costello said, we are anxious to facilitate the Minister on the passage of this Bill. However, that does not mean we will easily acquiesce if the Minister chooses to guillotine the debate. This matter requires careful consideration and debate, as much for what is not in it as for what is in it. In the time available to me I want to concentrate on what I see as a missed opportunity in the Bill to develop a further alternative method of investigation, namely, investigation by the Houses of the Oireachtas.

While listening to Deputy Kelleher on the monitor in my office I heard him make some points with which I agree. However, I must comment on his shock and horror that allegations made at Dublin Castle were being raised in this House and his belief that they ought to be left there. It is amazing that so few of the allegations made at Dublin Castle over the past seven years have surfaced in this House. That is remarkable. I pay tribute to the Taoiseach in many regards. However, as regards his foresight in setting up the tribunal, in some instances he says it was he who set it up while in others he says it was the Oireachtas. However, let us give him credit, for it is the longest touch-kick in political history in terms of dealing with difficult issues. Regardless of what one thinks of the issues raised or their outcome — we do not know if there will be an outcome — the Taoiseach has taken them out of the political arena and insulated them in Dublin Castle. Deputy Kelleher must have had his tongue in his cheek when he said it was a pity such matters were finding their way onto the floor here. It is rare that they do.

Last week, I raised a question about Jackson Way. I have since received a communication from former Deputy Lawlor pointing out that he has no connection with Jackson Way. The point I was raising was, given the claim jump involved which, as I said at the time, one would not see in the Yukon in the 19th century, whether the Government and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, will take action to ensure taxpayers' money is not paid over to that company. I would like also to refer to something Deputy Kelleher said, with which I agree. He is quite right to point out that the Minister is establishing commissions of investigation that are driven by Government or a Minister. That is not right. I am amazed that this Minister is doing so. One can only imagine, as Deputy Timmins said, what would have been the situation in the past if a Minister had had that authority; the circumstances in which he or she would have chosen to exercise it or not, the terms of reference drafted and so on.

I remember coming into the House to support an amendment tabled by my colleague, Deputy Gilmore, former Deputy Shatter and Deputy Quinn which sought to establish an inquiry into a certain matter now in the public domain at another venue. I was putting the case regarding the then Minister for the Environment and Local Government, former Deputy Flynn, and former Minister for Justice, Deputy Burke. One does not need to labour the point. We may not always have in the Minister's seat a man of the undoubted integrity and independence of mind as the present Minister. Given that the net point is accountability, does the Minister view this proposal as an adequate response to enforcing accountability when the Government appoints the commission and dictates its terms of reference? This is a serious flaw in a measure I am otherwise happy to support. The key issues are separation of powers and Government accountability to the Dáil. Clearly, the Oireachtas ought to have that role, not the Minister or the Government.

It is the job of this House to secure accountability in terms of public policy. We are obliged to scrutinise the operation and implementation of policy, something we are not equipped to do either in terms of resources or in terms of the law. Whatever about resources, we should not allow this legislation to glide through the House without at least questioning why the Minister and the Government have chosen to ignore the need for reform in this area.

We all know from recent experiences that there are many areas of public life on which a searching light deserves to be shed. We have had many examples in recent years where vast amounts of public resources have been wasted while pressing needs go unanswered. We have had examples of secret deals and insider trading, made without any proper basis, that have committed the State to unimaginable exposure. We have had an approach to the development of infrastructure that has generated chaos around the country and cost multiples of what it cost in other countries.

Only yesterday we had an announcement by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government of new so-called guidelines that are, whatever worthy cause they are ostensibly designed to pursue, wide open to abuse and could do untold environmental and infrastructural damage if not adequately debated and developed. We have had naked political electioneering masquerading as policy under the guise of decentralisation. We have also had the charade of electronic voting, an issue, if ever there was one, that demands thorough investigation here in the home of our parliamentary democracy.

We strongly believe that if the Dáil is to truly represent the interests of the people, it must be a place where accountability is delivered and maladministration leading to injustice can be investigated and rooted out. It must be a place where independent, tough and fair investigation finds a focus. There will always be room for adversarial politics, but there must also be a time when Members of the House are prepared to work together to uncover things that should not be hidden, as was visibly and manifestly done in the DIRT inquiry which has, since its conclusion, uncovered some €677 million for the taxpayer

I will repeat some of what my colleague Deputy Costello said in this regard. If we do not succeed in this debate in developing a major role for the Dáil in carrying out public inquiries, we will do it when in a position to do so. As a consequence of the Supreme Court judgments arising from the Abbeylara case and the knock-on effects of those judgments for the mini-CTC inquiry, it is clear that if parliamentary inquiries are to be effective, constitutional change is probably necessary.

In our published policy documents we have already proposed a constitutional amendment to confer a clear mandate on the Dáil to inquire into and report upon any exercise of the executive power of the State or on the administration of any of its public services. As a logical corollary, we have also proposed the establishment of a powerful new Oireachtas committee of investigations, oversight and petitions, bi-partisan in structure and chaired by a member of the Opposition. The role of that committee would be to ensure consultation and collaboration between the Oireachtas and the Ombudsman; to receive parliamentary petitions from interested groups in the community seeking the redress of grievances connected with the public services and with public administration generally; to arrange investigation of issues of urgent public importance which demand detailed and thorough investigation of the sort that normally only a tribunal can satisfactorily deal with; and to supervise an office of parliamentary investigator.

We have not proposed a full-time and permanent office of parliamentary investigator. We envisage that persons with particular requisite skills would be appointed to this office from time to time on the basis of specific contracts to carry out specific investigations and to advise the committee supervising this matter. In this way, we believe the model we propose would ensure speedy and cost-effective investigation of issues giving rise to significant public concern. As we know already, the Comptroller and Auditor General carries out similar functions, albeit on a permanent basis. The parliamentary inspector we envisage, underpinned by law, would have powers to secure attendance, direct answers to questions, direct the disclosure and production of documents, secure evidence and make determinations where privilege is claimed over information or documents.

Yesterday's meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts, which was dealing with a matter of significant public interest, namely, the indemnity deal in respect of children in residential institutions, is a good example. The Comptroller and Auditor General says the bill ultimately could be as much as €1 billion. A deal was entered into that capped the liability of the religious congregations and left the taxpayer with unlimited exposure. We are now in a circumstance, some six months later, where the religious congregations have not yet assented to appear before the committee. The Attorney General's office has declined to come before the committee, perhaps because it thinks it might be examined on the legal advice it gave to the Government. That would not happen because I accept that is a matter between Government and the Attorney General, but there are other matters relating to the manner of conclusion of the deal in which the matters of the committee——

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