Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the legislation and the opportunity to contribute on it. I thank the Minister of State for his informative remarks. On the face of it, the Bill is straightforward legislation that facilitates the working of the banking inquiry so that it might have access to all information relevant to the banking crisis that engulfed the nation. Fortunately, we are beginning to emerge from that carnage.

As an aside, while the cost of the banking crisis to the taxpayer was considerable, I am often struck by how we do not have an inquiry into the general state of our economic collapse, for example, the collapse in employment and the cost to the taxpayer and society at large, which was much more significant in financial terms than was the cost of the banking collapse.

I wish the members of the banking inquiry all the best in their endeavours to get to the bottom of the crisis. They do the public some service in the task they have undertaken. It is onerous not just in terms of the minutes and days spent in committee meetings, but in the preparation, reading and interpretation of what I suspect are often turgid documents that are required.

In terms of making as much information as possible available to the inquiry, the amendment to section 33AK of the Central Bank Act 1942 is welcome, but something that is not before the Dáil today is the question of how the House proposes to deal with sanctions on Members with access to that information. It is high time that the House had a debate on parliamentary privilege. It is not an absolute privilege, although it is taken by many to be so. We must be cognisant of third party rights. A Deputy referred to one of the most recent breaches, in which third party rights were disgracefully trespassed upon in the Chamber using information that was laid before a committee alleging that certain people held offshore bank accounts. It transpired that these allegations were bogus in most, if not all, respects.

Under the current sanctions regime or any strengthening of same that might be countenanced, what is to stop someone involved in the banking inquiry who gets access to sensitive information from repeating it chapter and verse in the Chamber and dressing it up as a great public service? We are building an edifice on an understanding of parliamentary privilege that appears to be based on foundations of sand. I appreciate that, to many people, this is an academic observation. While it is important that this House never be gagged, it is also important to realise that our privilege of free speech is not an absolute one. I suspect it does not need to be legislated for, as that would give a role to the courts in matters that, under the separation of powers principle, are parliamentary in their nature, but the House needs more teeth to deal with Members who abuse privilege.

Deputies Ross and Boyd Barrett were at a loss as to what information the Central Bank might have that could not be put in the public domain. I am not a banking expert, but I suspect that there is a significant volume of sensitive information that, if it were to be put into the public domain, would not be in the public interest. For example, a critical piece of information at the time would have been on the flight of capital out of banks. Deputy Ross was a cheerleader who eulogised one of the country's leading bankers and espoused the Anglo Irish Bank model as one that the State should have embraced wholeheartedly. At one stage, Deputy Ross advocated one of the principal players in Anglo Irish Bank for promotion, if not to Governor of the Central Bank, then to governor of Bank of Ireland.

God help the taxpayers and society at large if Deputy Ross's contributions in those days on the back pages of the Sunday Independenthad been acted upon by any government. I know that Deputy Ross would like to present himself today as the Messiah in waiting, with an alliance of others, to save the nation. However, I do not think his track record bears much scrutiny in respect of probity in financial matters or how the State should have proceeded.

It is abundantly clear that many Members of the House could not hold water in terms of sensitive information and would be in a rush to put it in the public domain. We need to seriously examine privilege in this House and how it is used and abused. In addition, we need to look at how we can have real teeth and sanctions for Members who abuse that and, in so doing, abuse the public interest.

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