Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Like every speaker, I share the desire for the banking inquiry to go wherever it feels the need to go and the appetite for frank answers to an unlimited number of questions. Just as we have been told it does, this Bill addresses the problem encountered by the banking inquiry when it has hit a brick wall while seeking certain information. I think the Bill should be supported in that sense. If the banking inquiry were to hit a brick wall when looking for information that is vital to its conclusions, then the doors that need to be opened to allow the inquiry to access such information would have to be opened. I was very suspicious when I found that some sort of conspiracy will ensure this information will go no further than the banking inquiry. The people who will be allowed to access this information will not be able to share it with us or with the general public. They will have to keep it to themselves. We need to consider how that will affect their ultimate conclusions. How can we reassure the public that the banking inquiry has credibility - there are many question marks in this regard at the moment - and is coming to conclusions which are equally credible if we do not know the basis on which these conclusions have been reached? Perhaps the Minister of State can enlighten me on this.

It seems to me that the banking inquiry is going to ask some very pertinent questions - we do not yet know who will be asked those questions - and is going to get answers to those questions behind closed doors before reaching conclusions as a result of those questions. I presume they will share those conclusions, but I know they will not share the evidence with us. If we do not see the evidence on which those conclusions are based, they will have absolutely no credibility whatsoever. I cannot say I would trust anybody - I do not mean this in a disrespectful way - to reach conclusions of such import as this inquiry is going to reach if they are not going to show me the evidence on which those conclusions are based. The idea that the banking inquiry will somehow operate in an important way in secret means that some of the pillars of credibility it has been given by some of its activities and some of its proponents will be removed. While I accept the introduction of this legislation in order to let the information out into the public, I thought we would all be able to share it. I think the idea that we are going to compromise the Deputies involved by asking them to keep this information a secret discredits it as well. I may well be wrong - only time will tell - but it makes it look like there is some sort of conspiracy to protect certain people from information coming out about them.

I echo what Deputy Boyd Barrett had to say. I do not think there is any reason to allow information about the current or deposit account activities of small depositors to be released. I cannot see where there would be any need for that. I doubt if that is the information the committee will be looking for. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the information it will be looking for will relate to the big players in this crisis, from which we have suffered for so many years.

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