Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

This is about democracy. If it is the view of the Minister of State that I am wrong, he should test the Bill and, if I am wrong about it, he should test it in a constitutional referendum. Ultimately the public elects representatives and representatives must never be excluded from examining any aspect of policy, its administration or its consequences. On another occasion I will expand on this and say that powers of this House have been given to the NRA, the HSE and elsewhere, which have effectively removed the power of accountability which representatives had. We are the worse for that. I will return to that issue on another occasion.

Regarding what is involved here, what of the concerns of the public, to which all of us return and who view our proceedings? I suggest something else. They would like to believe that the Parliament they elect in a representative sense is capable of seeking and obtaining such expert and technical advice as is necessary to give the accountable democratic decision. They are not saying that those in Parliament must immediately say that they are not competent and should hand sideways, as it were, to an expert opinion that for which the public have elected them. If that is one's view, one should get out of Parliament. We come in here and seek the expert opinions that are necessary to sustain us in an informational sense and to form a decision, but we take the decision and do not shirk from it. Unlike the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, we take it as much as possible, as the Labour Party is committed, in public to doing, to answer the public's concerns in a fully transparent way.

The public looking on will consider something else, namely, what would restore Ireland's reputation internationally. Is the restoration of Ireland's reputation served by the complex private structure, outlined in the Government's amendment to the motion, or is it best served by what the Labour Party proposes in regard to giving full public ventilation to all the issues? The Labour Party would not have opposed a scoping report, as I had pointed out, to identify all the complex issues that might exist, but we are insistent on the role of parliament and we believe that we will damage ourselves irrespective of who forms the Government or the Opposition. It is important that we do not lose strength. Our committees are weak. I hope that in future committees being formed will be at arm's length from Government. A committee system in which the Government of the day retains a majority does not have a sufficient arm's length distance. In committees in the Scandinavian system or elsewhere, not only does the government not have a monopoly on investigation of or establishing legislation, such committees have autonomy to initiate, amend and change legislation. What we need are parliamentarians who will not say that this is too complex for them or who will not give to an unaccountable body policy decisions that they should be taking or who will say to another group when the public are concerned, as they are now on this issue, that we will have a scoping report. That is all right.

Following that, there will be another wise-man and wise-woman commission which will decide on the great issues that are beyond Parliament. However, they are not beyond the public. I am not particularly interested in the names of the individuals involved, but I am interested in the fact that a political decision was taken to implement light-touch regulation in this country. The Minister who did this later became a European Commissioner and went to various countries in Scandinavia to suggest they should also have light-touch regulation. That fundamental policy decision was taken by an elected representative.

As we face into this long year, the public will ask one question: is this exercise only about, as somebody put it, getting out of the storm? Is it about restoring calm so that the reckless navigation can begin all over again? Or is it, as the Minister remarked - I liked the remark when he made it - about establishing an entirely different culture of banking, politics and regulation? If it is, let us hear from all sides of the House and all political parties that they are in favour of a different system entirely, and that they will oppose any covert or overt attempt to keep the old racket going - and a racket it was. Let us also hear, in the reply to our debate, at least this much: that no individual will be protected in any way and no file will be retained from any of the investigations that are going on.

I am a Member of this House. This Parliament has many defects, but the most outrageous is that tomorrow night at 8.30 p.m. it can decide, without proper analysis, that it should lose the competence to give the lead in an investigation, and lose the opportunity to strengthen its committee structure to give it the power to investigate any matter of public policy.

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