Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Within weeks of entering office, the Taoiseach had begun to engage in a process of playing low partisan politics on the banking issue, particularly the banking inquiry. He came into the House and threw out snide comments that files might have disappeared or been shredded and that nothing could be found. I have since been doing what he perhaps did not do - checking the facts. A freedom of information request established that large numbers of files related to the bank guarantee were in the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Finance. I have a full list of these files, but when confronted with this information, the Taoiseach refused to withdraw his partisan slur. I have taken up this matter with the person legally charged with the maintenance of records, including those of political staff, in the Department of the Taoiseach, namely, the Secretary General. He is a person of high standing whom the Taoiseach promoted and who was a senior official when the bank guarantee had been agreed to. He has confirmed that, as far as he is concerned, the Department is fully in compliance with its legal responsibilities to keep records. The question is whether the Taoiseach is capable of withdrawing his partisan slur. The records are in place and have not been tampered with in any way. The Taoiseach can say there should be more, but he cannot leave on the record of the House his slur that records might have disappeared. He has already done a bit to prejudge the banking inquiry and at the weekend insisted that he did not want to prejudge anything. If this is true, surely he will confirm that, contrary to he said before, there is no evidence that records are missing. I have the correspondence with the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach which confirms that what the Taoiseach said was not true.

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