Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

When the Governor of the Central Bank came before an Oireachtas committee and suggested there should be an inquiry into the scandal that beset the Irish banking and financial system in recent years, he reflected the widespread views of our citizens that we need to find out what caused the scandal, who caused the scandal and how we can avoid it happening again. Anyone in this House listening to the Governor of the Central Bank agrees with what he said, as does the Government. The simple question in this discussion is how we achieve the objective.

There are several ways we could achieve the objective. We could go down the traditional and tainted road of having a public tribunal of inquiry. I was taken by the description used by the Minister for Finance of the inquiries as barrister fattening exercises, a comment many people will agree with. We can choose an Oireachtas inquiry. I have participated in several those. We could also opt for a staged approach to this inquiry, as suggested by the Government. I agree with the last suggestion.

The scandal requires effective and efficient examination. With all due respect to Members of this House, this cannot be carried out by the House. We must remember that other countries have had serious banking crises in their financial systems. We are not the only country to have suffered this crisis but the public demands accountability as well as an efficient, effective and cost-effective inquiry.

Let us examine the model proposed to examine this via the Oireachtas, principally proposed by the Labour Party. I was interested in the contribution made by Deputy Burton in this respect. I was a member of the committee investigating the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. We tried to establish the causes of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and tried to establish where culpability lay. The advice to that committee again and again was that we could not make findings of culpability against anyone, nor could we ask questions about culpability in so far as it might suggest culpability. Every time we tried to ask an individual such a question, before we could get a response, our esteemed senior counsel, Mr. Mohan, advised us that we could not ask the question because the individual could go straight to the High Court and have our inquiry shut down. That this could happen fatally undermines the efficiency and effectiveness of an Oireachtas inquiry.

There is another more important reason an inquiry such as that would not be effective. Deputy Burton has formed her opinion on what she refers to as the toxic triangle between members of the Government, directors of banks and property developers. Under the Labour Party proposal, these individuals would come before a committee of this House. Is it credible that directors of banks would come before an Oireachtas committee where tough questions would be asked? These tough questions should be asked but questions impugning their standing or integrity would not be allowed to stand. Such witnesses would run straight to the High Court and the Supreme Court and 12 months later the inquiry would be mired in mud. Members of this House know that.

How do we conduct an efficient inquiry?

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