Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I wish to ask the Taoiseach specifically why the Department of Finance and the Minister for Finance have been excluded from the remit of this so-called inquiry. Why, for example, does it say that this inquiry will investigate banking up to September 2008? What does up to September 2008 mean? Does it mean 31 August? If it does, does that not exclude the very month in which the Government introduced the guarantee on the banking system? If that is only a drafting mistake, why would one in any event end it at September 2008 when several significant events happened after September 2008 which would now be outside the remit of the inquiry? For example, the telephone call from Anglo Irish Bank telling staff to the Financial Regulator in October indicating that the bank was manipulating its balance sheet and that the figures they had were not real numbers.

The amendment the Government has proposed to the Labour Party motion tonight is a dodge. It is an attempt to replace what we in the Labour Party, Fine Gael, the public, the Governor of the Central Bank and most responsible opinion is looking for, namely, an inquiry into what happened to our banking system and for it to be conducted openly and in public. The Government is replacing that with a privately conducted behind-closed-doors three or four stage exercise that will be dragged on until the Government gets to the other side of a general election.

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