Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

It would be unfair to say that nothing has happened. A new independent office, the Director of Corporate Enforcement, is fully resourced with key professionals from the law and accounting, and members of the Garda Síochána. One of the significant complaints from corporate Ireland is the vigorous manner in which company law is being enforced. In fact some Deputies have spoken to me privately about it because of the change from the previous laissez-faire attitude to an aggressive one. The director has had a significant number of successful prosecutions, but that does not seem to get the attention one would have expected.

In response to the question on the inquiries that Mr. Gerard Ryan is completing in my Department, I had hoped they would be completed. I had a meeting with the officer and the legal adviser recently and I am due to have another meeting shortly. I hope the inquiries will be completed by the end of the summer. Much of the work in which he has been involved involves passing on a great deal of documentation to both the Moriarty and Mahon tribunals. Worthy information has come to light which is more within the remit of those bodies than it is a matter for the officer in charge of company law investigations.

What remains in my watch is what Mr. Gerard Ryan does. From here on, all the other inquiries are the responsibility of the independent Director of Corporate Enforcement. I am happy to say that he is doing an outstanding job in enforcing company law. That was the purpose of the legislation. We did not wait for the outcome of the particular inquiries.

From the information available, I expect that the High Court inspectors in the NIB case will report to the High Court by July of this year. If adverse conclusions about any individual are being drawn, they are required to make those individuals aware of the adverse conclusion, under natural justice, to give them an opportunity to respond. They did that some considerable time ago and are now in a position to finalise the report and present it to the High Court by July.

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