Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

Thank you. We all support the need for this inquiry. The point I was trying to make is this. The House probably does not know that the Committee of Public Accounts, having been frustrated in its wish to investigate the DDDA in public, decided to look at the possibility of doing it in private, but yesterday, as a result of some fairly lukewarm legal advice and another letter from the chairman of the DDDA, it decided to park even that.

Unless the Taoiseach and the Government impose extraordinarily strict criteria on potential witnesses, what hope is there of a full banking inquiry to get to the truth if they continuously rely on legal technicalities to get them out of this difficulty? It is undoubtedly true that will be tried and used as soon as this inquiry is set up. Is the Taoiseach prepared to put the maximum amount of pressure on not only the bankers, who will be reluctant to come before this inquiry, but on other people and other professions - I am talking about accountants, solicitors and others - who have received generous Government largesse to ensure that they do not frustrate an inquiry which is in the interests of the State?

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