Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On foot of the work done at an earlier stage by Deputy Murphy, Deputy McDonald wants some of the matters inquired into. I have said to her and Deputy Martin very plainly, and I want to repeat it to her in case she was not listening, that I want to see an independent inquiry by a competent authority. There are a number of ways of doing this. This country has a great deal of experience of carrying out inquiries and investigations, and in some of those inquiries and investigations the offices and the resources of the Comptroller and Auditor General have been utilised on occasion, particularly in scoping matters.

If the Deputy wants, as she claims, to get answers, one wants competence and to be able to inquire into all of the matters. What I said was that I do not have any difficulty if it is deemed necessary and appropriate to inquire into the additional matters she raised about a number of other companies she mentioned. What one has to do is examine this and determine how best to do it, and bear in mind that there were other issues which the Deputy is ignoring, such as the fact that 1,500 people were working in this company. Does she suggest that the company should just have been let go?

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