Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

I find myself agreeing with many of Deputy Murphy's comments. The more I think about this Bill and the potential change to the Constitution, the more critical I am of it. In principle it is a good idea that Oireachtas committees should have powers and teeth, with the ability to uncover facts. Many of us have suffered from the fact that Oireachtas committees have tended to be theatre without any powers at all in recent times. Deputy Donohoe and I were on the last transport committee, which began an unofficial inquiry into activities at Iarnród Éireann. We came up against a brick wall because various witnesses refused to come before the committee and co-operate, while others came in but refused to answer certain questions. Ultimately we got absolutely nowhere and the committee, although good theatre, was ineffective in getting a conclusion to the investigation. That would indicate there is a need, if we are to have Oireachtas inquiries, for different powers and methods, as well as compellability.

Often, witnesses who tend be vulnerable or subject to court cases plead that they cannot come before committees because an issue is sub judice. I do not buy that argument as a witness would add to the evidence in a court case rather than contradict it; if the witness contradicts the evidence, the matter would be exposed. All kinds of excuses have been successfully used in this respect but most of the time people just do not come before a committee, which is utterly unacceptable as no inquiry can come to a conclusion under such circumstances.

There have been two high-profile Oireachtas inquiries, one which was very successful and one which was a complete flop. The successful one was obviously the DIRT inquiry which started in 1997, when the bankers were brought before the committee. The committee came to quick conclusions and was operationally successful. Its conclusions were also extremely useful. It exposed something in a useful manner, which public representatives should have the power to do. The committee had huge powers to do that.

The second one makes me very uncomfortable about what is happening in this legislation. It was the investigation conducted in 1994. This is where Deputy Murphy is absolutely correct about the need for checks and balances. The investigation in 1994 was established by the coalition Government comprising Fine Gael and the Labour Party to examine the events surrounding the collapse of the previous Government under former Deputy Albert Reynolds. At the time and even now, and I have no sympathy for Fianna Fáil, I had an extraordinarily uneasy feeling about politicians investigating the activities of their predecessors under oath. There was no question of independence. It looked like a political grouping saying: "We do not like what happened in that collapse, we want to find out what happened and we will use it, one way or the other, to criticise and crucify our political opponents." I feel uncomfortable about that, and I do not have a solution as I have not considered it enough.

The problem is that if politicians carry out an investigation and make findings, judgments or statements, they are coming from a particularly biased and political background. There is no point even pretending that politicians are independent or that a committee which has a huge Government majority can reach independent conclusions. Regardless of what side of the House they are on, the committee members will not do so. They will reach conclusions or judgments on matters or findings of fact which are undoubtedly very strongly tempered by a political background. There will also be a temptation for all governments to set up inquiries with compellability powers whose conclusions will inevitably be embarrassing to their political opponents.

This is a really serious difficulty. Superficially, this measure is right, as is the impetus and motivation behind it, but the practice behind it could be extremely dangerous. Anybody who looks at that 1994 report and at the proceedings of that committee will find that it was a deeply political inquiry into the activities of the Government's predecessors. That was wrong and I hope a measure such as this will not be used for that purpose, but I am not confident that will be the case.

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