Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

It is a commission of inquiry, and if the Deputy has read the legislation under which such a commission is established, he will see that the intention is to carry out a private inquiry into matters. The function of the commission is to avoid the public inquiries of tribunals and that is why it was established by the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell. It is effectively a preliminary inquiry and is not a full blooded public inquiry.

We must have a proper inquiry into all the circumstances. We must return to that fateful night of 28 September 2008, when the Government decided to give a blanket guarantee of €440 billion, without any consideration for the zombie banks and building societies like Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. Irish taxpayers' money was thrown at banks that had ruined our economy and our institutions. Why was the Government bounced into that decision? Why did it not reflect on the matter for a couple of days? Was there some other reason? We do not know. We can only know if we have an inquiry, but the inquiry being established by the Government will not cover those events. It must go back that far and it must be comprehensive.

We owe it to the taxpayer to carry out all investigations necessary to get to the root cause of Ireland's financial collapse. We must determine why we came to this sorry state. Only then can we properly put in place a regulatory and supervisory mechanism. To an extent, we are putting the cart before the horse so when the investigation is done we will have to come back and address the issue again. In addition, we must apportion blame and impose sanctions. We must ensure that, where appropriate, people do end up in prison. Deputy Morgan referred to directors who signed off on accounts and gave the impression that everything was fine within Anglo Irish Bank and other institutions. For that matter, the former Financial Regulator was telling the public at large that we had the best capitalised banks in Europe when there was scarcely a penny in their coffers and they were desperately seeking money. These matters must be addressed and those responsible have to be dealt with.

Regulation must come about and this Bill is the start. The regulator, Mr. Matthew Elderfield, has shown how it can be done and the European Union is already engaged. The Minister for Finance is proposing in legislation to mirror what is already being proposed in the EU. It is very important that both the domestic and European legislative packages can integrate in such as way that the EU can play a necessary supervisory and regulatory role, as proposed in the Jacques de Larosière report.

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