Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I joined this debate because I have concerns that if we are talking about trying to get to the truth of the matter - the Minister says the first inquiry will probably be the banking inquiry, which is the obvious one of public interest - and if it is the Oireachtas that decides these things, it is the Oireachtas and not the Minister or anybody else which decides which inquiry will be the first one. I assume it will be in the context of what we are talking about. There will be inherent bias in it. Let us be very clear. The reason the Irish people rejected the Government's amendment in 2011 was because it believes it will be impossible for this Dáil and Seanad, as presently constructed, to have impartial investigations that can come to conclusions, find fact and report. They do not trust the current situation with political partisanship shown on a continual basis. I spoke against that referendum for that specific reason. I do not believe that one could find and record fact because we are inherently partisan in our commentary here on a continual basis. I can assure the Minister that there is no Deputy on any side of this House who has not made utterances that would prejudice their views in the context of an inquiry. The Minister referred to what former Supreme Court Justice Catherine McGuinness said in her response in the Abbylara case. The Minister should know the Abbylara case very well because he was a central character in the judgment.

The bottom line here is that if people are mandated to inquire, the difficulty is that one must go to the people to seek a mandate. We are now establishing an inquiry halfway through a Dáil term and will be in a position where we could as an Oireachtas be inquiring into very serious matters of public importance and the inquiry then falls because of the holding of an election. For the next two years plus, we could be discussing the banking inquiry, going through the whole process, bringing in witnesses, using the available information in the context of the Nyberg and Honohan reports and bringing in all the central figures involved. Then the Labour lads walk out the door and bring down the Government and the entire inquiry falls. It is perplexing. If there was a fixed-term Parliament, one might have some chance. However, we will have modules and, obviously, the political modules will be first. That will take us up to a certain period of time. After that, we will have other characters that will be central to any proper, thorough investigation. However, when a Parliament falls, that is the end of the inquiry. The inquiry cannot even finalise the report because there is an election.

That is an inherent flaw in this legislation and if nothing else, the Government should look to see that there are some obligations somewhere along the line that a report must be finalised at a certain period of time. We do not have fixed parliamentary terms. Other European jurisdictions and the US have fixed parliamentary terms. This inquiry system could lead to people being brought in and certain slants put on it from a political perspective and there might not be an opportunity for a person to present themselves because an election has been called. That is inherently unfair and wrong.

The Irish people were very clear in their decision on an amendment sponsored by the Government. The Minister does not even have faith in this legislation and the reason why he has no faith in it is because he is already saying that the Government might revisit the constitutional referendum put forward previously. If this is the belt and braces inquiry the Government is talking about, why is it even talking about the need to have another referendum? It is because this is false and failed in the sense that it would not uncover the truth in respect of any investigation, not just the banking inquiry.

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