Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

I support the amendment. The debate arises from a public demand to find out what went wrong with our banking system and who is responsible for it. The people want to ensure this does not happen again and to restore our reputation on the international financial markets in a way that does not prejudice ongoing criminal investigations. People have lost their savings and pensions. Businesses in my constituency cannot obtain finance from banks because the banks cannot access credit following the wipe-out of their capital as a result of unwise decisions. People are demanding answers to these questions.

Everyone in the House agrees on the central objectives of an inquiry but we disagree on how we go about doing this. The Government wants to do this efficiently, effectively and in a way that works and we disagree fundamentally with the Opposition on this. The proposals of Fine Gael and the Labour Party, although they seek to achieve the same objective as the Government, cannot do so. We want an inquiry that will compel those who have information and who have difficult questions to answer to come before it and to be held to account. We want them to be subject to rigorous cross-examination. We want an inquiry that can make findings of fact and culpability about people who were centrally involved in the financial collapse of the country. Unfortunately, the Fine Gael and Labour Party proposals would not allow us to do that. The Government shares their desire to meet the public demand for culpability and accountability but the only way in which we will achieve that is through the Government's three-pronged proposal to find out the questions that need to be answered, to identify the people who can answer them and then to use legislation, which the House passed, to allow an inquiry to take place where this information can be ascertained, witnesses brought forward, tough questions answered and a report made public.

That is a tried and tested method. We witnessed it recently in the inquiry into the Dublin archdiocese. Nobody has questioned whether that was a cost effective, efficient inquiry that got to the heart of the matter, and there is no suggestion that the Government's proposal would do otherwise. Unfortunately, many Deputies and members of the public are confused by a blood lust to hold an inquiry in the Dáil, which would replicate a tribunal of inquiry, discredited as such inquiries are. The Government wants to put before the House the report of the commission of investigation with its findings of fact and culpability in order that the House can have its own day. The people involved can be brought in on the basis of findings and allegations made against them in the report about them not doing their job or opening credit lines they should not have or making bad and imprudent credit decisions. The Government's proposal will provide for such a report and, armed with this, the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service will be able to do what the people want, which is find out who is responsible, how we got to this point and how we can avoid arriving at this point again while, at the same time, ensuring people who broke the law and engaged in malpractice and misconduct and who should be brought before the courts can be still brought before them. The only way to achieve the objectives we all share in the House is through the Government's proposal.

Deputy Burton sought a bipartisan approach to this affair but, unfortunately, the Deputy and the Labour Party had made up their minds that there was a toxic triangle between the banks, my party and developers, an allegation I reject. If they seek to have a bipartisan inquiry in the House having come to such a conclusion, it will go nowhere.

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