Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)

Perhaps it will be the opposite way. Although I respect Deputy Rabbitte personally for introducing the Bill, it must be said that the Opposition seeking special procedures to investigate matters is ironic, given today's events during which the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, was accused of all sorts of crime. Deputies and Senators discussed their referring files to the DPP and made allegations and statements of what they believed to be facts. The High Court judge was privy to the case's proceedings and did not decide to intervene at a time when judges in the High and Circuit courts regularly refer files to the DPP on grounds of perjury and abuses of the court system. As is regularly the case, the Opposition was ready to draw its own conclusion without the need for any procedures or fair play.

Evidence would be given at a tribunal and Opposition Members would eagerly listen to radio reviews that would last from the evening until the night. The next day, Leaders' Questions revolved around the evidence given before the tribunal. Why did the Opposition introduce this Bill to investigate matters when our current investigative systems are used for political comment and advantage? People are always ready to jump to conclusions and make findings of what they view as fact based on what they hear on radio. Since I have been elected to Dáil Éireann, this is the situation in which the Opposition has found itself time and again. It is ironic that the Opposition introduced this Bill when it has generally shown no appetite for fair play or for listening to both sides of a story. The Opposition listens only to its own side of the story.

What kind of a sorry country would we be in if Deputies, Senators and other politicians could refer files to the DPP? It is what some of them wanted to do today. Some believe they have that power, but we are a Legislature. We are not an Executive or a prosecutor. We must bear in mind these facts when commenting on alleged crimes and so on. We are not the Judiciary. We are the people who make the laws and it is not for us to make the decision as to who broke them. With this in mind, certain of the intentions behind introducing the Bill are good, but it is slightly hypocritical.

I fully supported a banking investigation, but some people have the idea that it could be subcontracted to certain so-called wise men of the Opposition. Some of the names that have been put forward by Deputy Kenny to lead this investigation were ludicrous. The idea that they had some special ability to look into our banking system in a fair and impartial way was ridiculous, and I will not name names here today.

I welcome what the Minister has done. He has appointed people who know their business. They are people who will not be involved in the political process in this State, who will have no axe to grind and who have no advantage one way or the other. They will be totally independent in their investigations. We will have Patrick Honohan, Klaus Regling, Max Watson and others.

The advantage of having this investigation in private is that we will not have a leader's question every time evidence is given before it about what the Taoiseach thought of that evidence. The leaders of the Opposition who would have asked those kinds of questions, as they have done previously, would not be privy to the evidence put forward. They would be privy only to second-hand radio reports of the investigation that would be broadcast morning, noon and night. I can trust these people to carry out the necessary investigation that is going on because they are independent.

There are issues regarding the Oireachtas committee system that can and will be examined, but we cannot put ourselves in the position of being prosecutor or judge because we are too political. Members, irrespective of on what side of the House they are, are always seeking political advantage. That is the reality. We cannot investigate - which is what the Opposition generally seeks to do - any of the so-called major issues of the day or any controversy that bubbles up on websites, is spread by the media for a few weeks and eventually comes before the House. If the Opposition was serious about dealing with an issue such as one that was dealt with today, why was it not brought up when it first became public knowledge? It was brought up when it became a political issue. The political is being mixed with the legal and the judicial. It is totally wrong for this House to do that. That should be left to the Judiciary and the prosecutors.

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