Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

Ba mhaith liom tacú leis an méid a bhí le rá ag an Teachta Mulherin ó thaobh na daoine seo atá ag cur airgid ar fáil agus na rátaí arda atá á bhaint amach ar dhaoine. Caithfear rud éigin a dhéanamh faoi seo.

The Bill is straightforward and I would be surprised if it did not receive the unanimous support of the House, which it deserves. As Deputy Michael McGrath and others have stated, the Bill will allow the Financial Services Ombudsman to publish findings arising from complaints made against financial service companies. In this way, the public could have full access to determinations of the ombudsman's office on cases involving banks, insurance companies, stockbrokers, mortgage brokers, hirer purchase providers and others. This would be particularly useful in cases in which financial service providers were found to be in breach of regulations or guilty of malpractice. The benefits of the right to publish are obvious from the point of view of consumer rights.

It would also allow for greater public scrutiny of the practice of financial service companies and empower consumers in deciding between service providers. Given that the Mahon tribunal report has dominated political debate for over a week, it is clear there can never be enough transparency and accountability in public life, whether commercial or political. This Bill is a small measure, however welcome, but society needs a much greater level of ambition when it comes to accountability and transparency in commercial and political life. We have yet to have any formal naming and shaming of the organisations and individuals responsible for the financial crash of 2008 and the subsequent economic and social crisis. While the media has played an important role in exposing some of the information there is clearly a need for more. Official reports such as the Nyberg report did not go far enough in pinpointing responsibility for the economic crisis.

Identifying individual responsibility is central to real transparency and accountability. It took 15 years and €300 million to get to the bottom of planning corruption in Dublin city and county dating back more than 20 years. The issues at the heart of the Mahon tribunal, which we now know as facts, were widely known for many years but there was neither willingness nor a mechanism to hold those who took corrupt or improper payments to account.

Even today, there is still reluctance in many quarters to allow individuals, including Members of this House, to ask legitimate questions about the actions of individuals who may have been involved in commercial dealings of an inappropriate nature, including individuals who are now in the employ of the state. Only last month I was expelled from this Chamber for raising legitimate questions about an individual who has been recently appointed to a senior position in one Department. I made no accusations against the individual. What I did was raise legitimate concerns regarding the individual's potential involvement in or knowledge of certain matters prior to taking on public sector employment. Asking questions does not imply guilt. Denying Deputies the right to raise such questions creates an atmosphere where real scrutiny and transparency is not possible. Unfortunately the only forum for such scrutiny is this Chamber, where we now know that the consequences may be expulsion. Clearly the desire for transparency and accountability did not extend to those questions.

One of the reasons it took 15 years and €300 million to produce the truth on planning corruption in Dublin was that no one in this House was willing to use Dáil privilege to name and shame those involved. However, we expel Deputies from the Chamber for simply asking for questions about to the fitness of individuals to take up senior public employment. The same point could be made in regard to those individuals directly responsible for the financial crash in 2008. While we know of the high profile individuals like Seanie Fitzpatrick and David Drumm, many others also played key tools in institutions like Anglo Irish Bank. For example, one of the most senior officials in Anglo Irish Bank in the years before 2008, who was at the centre of many of the high risk decisions that led the bank and ultimately the State to insolvency, was recently employed by AIB, a nationalised bank. It is hard to believe that this individual could have passed any credible fitness and probity test, yet he remains in the employ of the State, despite having played a central role in the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank and in turn the near collapse of the State. It baffles me how an individual who was one of the top 50 managers in Anglo Irish Bank, who chaired its credit control committee and who was involved in the granting of highly improper loans to the maple ten group, Seanie Fitzpatrick and Mr. Quinn can be transferred to a senior management position in another State owned bank. To add insult to injury this was done at a time when AIB was planning to announce 2,500 redundancies of ordinary workers in the bank who played no hand, act or part in the decisions that ruined our banking system and our economy.

Clearly something is rotten in this but there is no adequate mechanism or forum for Deputies to raise legitimate questions in order to ensure transparency and accountability in public appointments of this kind. The only option is to piggy back the debate on this Bill. That hardly suggests the current Government has any meaningful commitment to transparency and accountability in public life, particularly within those aspects of public life over which it has most control, namely, the Civil Service and the nationalised banks. The same point could be made of NAMA. Last month I published a Bill that would bring NAMA under the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. The taxpayer is shelling out €500,000 per day to run NAMA, which continues to make losses while paying developers in excess of €200,000 per annum and legal fees in the millions of euro. The agency seems to be full of potential conflicts of interest. The lid of secrecy has to be lifted from NAMA so that the public is made aware of what is going on. There is neither transparency nor accountability in any of these matters and we need to ensure that questions can be asked in order to increase transparency and accountability in all aspects of Government activity. These principles should apply not only to the financial services sector but also to the functioning of our political institutions and their involvement in commercial, semi-State and public service provision.

I welcome Deputy Michael McGrath's Bill and hope that it is supported by all Deputies in the house. It is a small first step from a political party that has long refused to embrace the values that inform it. If the Government supports the Bill, I hope that is an indication that it intends to increase transparency and accountability not only in the private sector but to all areas of Government. Naming and shaming is a powerful tool to ensure compliance with regulations as well as normal standards of fair play and decency.

See this speech in context