Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate. I am not a legal expert like some previous speakers who have addressed this matter from a legal perspective, but we must pull back from the legal complexities and examine in more detail the Dáil's current investigative powers and what they might need to be. The committee system works effectively within its terms of reference. Much of the work relates to subject matters that are not contained within the broad policy development framework of the House. Committees are used mainly, but not exclusively, to deal with bodies that fall under the auspices of various Departments and are a step removed from our work in the Chamber. To some extent, they provide an opportunity to bring political accountability to entities funded by the taxpayer and give Deputies an opportunity to debate and, where necessary, make accountable servants of the State. This Bill, however, seems to be an effort to try to turn the committee system into something different, to take practices and principles that are relevant in other jurisdictions where there are different systems of administration and parliament and use them to create a system that will make the Government of the day stand before a committee of the House and seek, almost on a policy-by-policy basis, a level of inquisition or creation of a Star Chamber.

Deputy Shatter referred to the need to bring about accountability. Members of the House, be they Ministers, backbenchers or Opposition Deputies, are accountable every time there is an election when the public makes up its mind. I would hate to see some type of Star Chamber being created within the structure of the Dáil that sought to remove from the procedures agreed on the floor of the House in an attempt to assist in the misrepresentation of events, thereby allowing for the creation of a perception of some level of wrongdoing or lack of accountability when neither is the case.

We have yet to find an ideal way to conduct inquiries. We know what does not work. The Abbeylara approach did not work, a situation that this Bill seeks to address. I respect what Deputy Rabbitte is trying to do. For instances such as Abbeylara and when dealing with entities at a remove from the House, this type of approach might be the way to go. However, the Abbeylara approach did not work and there are difficulties about the inferred liability issue.

Tribunals of inquiry certainly do not work. They are a runaway success for some, particularly those in the legal profession, and we do not want to go there. There must be better ways of bringing out the truth and identifying wrongdoing without carrying a substantial cost and creating a bounty for others.

We cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach. We must find a way to determine the problem, decide what we want to achieve and then try to fashion a solution. The Government's proposal for dealing with the banking crisis is credible. It seeks to create two reports, one by the Governor of the Central Bank and another by two eminent, independent and wise gentlemen whose reputations are untarnished and whose bona fides are accepted by all sides of the House, namely, Mr. Max Watson and Mr. Klaus Regling.

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