Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Why is the Taoiseach not in a position to state he will put in train, for example, the kind of investigation that I suggested or that Deputy Kenny suggested yesterday in terms of the Judge Cory-type precedent? Surely we can do that to meet the genuine concerns of the relatives.

The Taoiseach did not state yesterday — I read the transcript again because I sometimes have as much difficulty as his backbenchers in interpreting what he says — why the Government decided against a national fire authority, which was the key recommendation of the Keane tribunal. He brought in consultants and they recommended a national fire authority as the key recommendation, yet the Taoiseach never explained why he decided against it. In today's newspapers fire officers in Dublin state there is the same number of fire safety inspectors as in 1981 and express fears that must be in the mind of every citizen about whether this could happen again. There is no answer to that either. Why did the Taoiseach decide not to set up a national fire authority? Will he appoint somebody, along the lines of the precedent in the Dean Lyons case, to establish whether there is any hope that a new investigation would reach different conclusions in regard to this appalling tragedy?

See this speech in context