Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Burton raised the question of the terms of reference and asked why these did not extend to the Government and the Department of Finance. I believe there are two distinct issues Deputy Burton is anxious to see examined. One relates to the causes of the crisis and the fact that the response, the analysis, the assessment, the Department may have made and the advice it may have given to successive Ministers with regard to the causes of the crisis. The other relates to the phase of crisis management and how the Department responded when the crisis became manifest and how decisions were informed in that regard.

With regard to the causes of the crisis, Messrs Watson and Regling have said there is a fundamental distinction between issues which are susceptible to legal analysis and examination and determination of fact and wider political issues. In my respectful view, this question of the causes of the crisis is a wider political issue and is not a matter into which a commission of inquiry should inquire. It is a wider political issue and there is much information on it in the public domain. Deputy Burton herself participated in much of it and in this House participated in questioning of successive Ministers. There is a wealth of information in the public domain on these matters already. Clearly, were the commission to be asked to look into that matter, it could continue its investigations for a very long time. The request for a commission of inquiry into the causes of the crisis reminds me somewhat of the commission the late Éamon de Valera always wanted to see, into the causes of the Civil War. One cannot have a commission of that type, going on forever into a complex set of historical circumstances, where there is a wealth of information in the public domain already, all of which has been parsed and analysed by the partisans of different historical interpretations.

The second aspect of the Deputy's concern relates to the crisis management aspect, once the problem came into the public domain. The Deputy has always fastened on a date around St. Patrick's Day 2008 when the first signs of a disturbance in the share price of Anglo Irish Bank materialised. Others fasten on September, where the lava that was building up in the subterranean caverns of the banks finally imploded and came to the surface. Whatever date we fix upon, it is clear that the Department, and I as Minister, had to undertake the task of crisis management at that stage. Many legitimate criticisms can be made, given the scale of management that had to be undertaken in such a crisis. However, what is lacking in any suggestion that this should be referred to the commission, is any foundation of any impropriety that has been laid.

When we have had inquiries into Departments in the past, such as the inquiry we had presided over by the late Chief Justice, then the President of the High Court, Mr. Justice Hamilton, into the beef industry, we had concrete allegations with regard to the administration of the Department and its political head. We do not have that here. We have had plenty of political charges on the floor of the House, but at no stage has it been suggested with regard to the phase of crisis of management that there was any impropriety in the conduct of the Department. Therefore, it is not a matter for a commission of inquiry. Indeed, Messrs Watson and Regling gave the opinion to the committee that the crisis management had been excellent. I might not subscribe to that point of view myself, but there is certainly no foundation for referring that aspect - the Department's management or myself - to a commission of inquiry. I believe it is important that my Department is enabled to get on with the job of continuing the important job of economic management that must take place in the country here and now. I am quite satisfied there is nothing that would immobilise my Department faster than the establishment of a commission of inquiry into it now.

I have dealt with most of the points raised. Deputy Morgan asked about the Taoiseach and asked who was prepared to go before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service. The Taoiseach has made it clear he is prepared to go before it and I am also prepared to go before it. I cannot speak for persons who are not members of the House.

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