Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a very interesting debate and if we had got it off the ground some months ago we might be further down the track of the banking inquiry. I understand the reasons behind it. The Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions was established to have these debates and schedule them over the period of its existence. The referendum saw off that aspect of that committee, which was established on the same kind of basis as the Committee of Public Accounts. It was intended that it would not have a Whip imposed and that it would deal with issues as they arose and deal with facts. The people in their wisdom disagreed with the proposal and we have to accept the outcome of that. I do not believe we properly debated or defended the proposals for the Houses of the Oireachtas to have those investigative powers. We all made mistakes in that debate. Some people used it for party political purposes, which was regrettable, and it sidelined the Dáil and parliamentarians.

Why should parliamentarians in this Parliament be more shackled than parliamentarians in other jurisdictions? We need only look across the water at the investigations in the British House of Commons in recent times. I am not saying that is the be-all and end-all and the United States also has a system. How have they managed to deal with the desire for parliamentarians to investigate and do the work for which they have been elected? I believe we will struggle with this. I also believe it will be difficult to deal with the perception of bias, but we must do so. It is our duty to try to ensure we have some mechanism allowing the Houses of the Oireachtas to establish an inquiry to make findings of fact - not to allocate blame or impose punishment or sanctions. It would be strange if we could not sit down and request witnesses to attend and for us to make a finding on the basis of the facts that they present. If witnesses are not willing to appear, it is possible to make a finding on that basis, once they have been given the opportunity to have their say.

I welcome the move by the Houses of the Oireachtas towards a banking inquiry or any other inquiry that will use this mechanism. I sat on the on the CPP and attended the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice Equality and Defence going back to the Dáil's attempts to get a committee together to deal with the case of Judge Brian Curtin. We had to try to find Members who had not said anything about Judge Curtin and we found them, believe it or not. However, in this case, given the passage of time and the collapse of the economy based on a series of events around the banking crisis, it would be very difficult to find Deputies who have not spoken about the banking crisis, including who caused it and who did not. If they have not spoken on it at this stage, I do not believe they are doing their job and I do not believe they are doing their constituents a service. In addition, every political party represented in this House has made a comment and we are associated with those comments. However, that should not prevent us from sitting on a committee of inquiry. We have a view and everybody in the country has a view. It would be almost impossible to find a jury if it were necessary to put a jury together.

That does not mean that one will not set aside one's views and listen to facts as they are presented. I have studied history. Often I would approach a set of facts with a preconceived idea. Part of a historian’s training is to go back and consider the facts. They either confirm where one came from or totally change one’s view of life. We are big and open enough to do that.

That is what will be asked of us if this or any inquiry is set up. We need to be very careful to defend the rights of parliamentarians to have a view, even if they sit on a committee. The problem arises if one’s view is so rigid that one is not willing to listen to the facts as presented. Such an inquiry would be a good thing for democracy in Ireland.

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