Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Moriarty tribunal report, which was delivered early in 2011, almost simultaneous with the formation of the current Government - contained very serious findings against two named individuals, a former Fine Gael Minister and a prominent businessman. There was much pious rhetoric in this House and much hullabaloo about what was going to be done in the next four years and in the programme for Government. One of the key commitments in the programme for Government was that there was going to be a democratic revolution. The public were reassured that this democratic revolution had been proclaimed to ensure there would be accountability and transparency, and that the sins of the past would never happen again.

As with much else over the course of the last four years, the Government parties took the sayings and doings of Government for granted. It has insisted that we judge it on its words, not on its actual intentions, and it has ignored its commitments, particularly with respect to the most vulnerable people. Within months of taking office, the Government oversaw the beginning of several significant sales of State assets through contracts within IBRC, with the writing down of large amounts of debt - initially, debt indirectly owed to the State's own citizens. Many of these dealings involved a businessman named in the tribunal report in 2011. In my view, this constituted a profound failure of Government, a failure of public policy and a failure of constitutional policy. It demonstrated a lack of prudence and oversight by this Government in terms of a re-engagement one month after the publication of the Moriarty report. Why was the State, under the Government, being permitted to involve itself again in dealing with a person named in the Moriarty tribunal? One cannot fault a businessman for wanting to make a profit, but one has to fault a Government for failing to have proper oversight.

This is a Government that accepted the terms of the Moriarty tribunal. Once bitten, twice shy. What we have seen is something that is far from shy. We can all remember the Taoiseach proudly standing for photo opportunities with that same business person. We had a situation in which Ministers, particularly in the Fine Gael Ministries, were happy for their Departments to have a critical role in overseeing deals with respect to the changes in society and the offloading of assets through IBRC.

We can see it here tonight. I know the backbenchers in the Government are very sensitive about allusions to words and commitments, and they tread very carefully around that. There is a famous incident in a Sherlock Holmes story concerning the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. What we see here is the absence of the bark of a dog. We have seen it too many times; we see it in every incident. It involves the failure of the dog to bark, to stop and make sure this did not happen again. We cannot be surprised with the actions of Fine Gael. They act according to their nature, their instinct. The fable of the scorpion and the frog comes to mind immediately. Incidentally, Labour should realise that it is the frog and the scorpion is stinging it on this one. It is clear that the scorpion will drop the frog when it has injected its poison.

The last Fine Gael-Labour Party Government saw the single biggest act of corruption in the history of the State, whereby a State asset acquired through corruption ended up massively in the control of one businessman in this country. At that time, the Labour dog failed to bark, and history is repeating itself here tonight.

Siteserv owed €150 million to IBRC - that is to say, it owed €150 million indirectly to the State and its citizens. It was eventually sold at a discount for €45 million. As part of that sale, curiously, €5 million was used as an incentive to ensure the sale took place with the current bidder. The Department of Finance was mystified and concerned at the time about the €5 million, which is documented and has been clearly evidenced in this House. Other bidders were excluded from the process, including bidders who were prepared to bid more. In fact, they were excluded from engagement in the bidding despite the fact that they were bidding an additional €10 million or €15 million. That is not understood in this House to be prudent political oversight.

The successful bidder, we are told, was favoured because he was willing to waive any due diligence and to effectively buy the company on the blind. It is extraordinary that a company should be willing to spend €45 million on a pig in a poke, on a company that was flatlining, with a penny stock. Of course, it turned out to be a very fortunate purchase and, in fact, it was a blind sale that was a wonderful gamble. I know the Acting Chairman is prone to the odd gamble, but this was one of the best blind sale gambles in this country. This is a company that landed on its feet. There was no due diligence, it put €45 million on the table and there was a kickback of €5 million to the shareholders.

Of course, Siteserv is only one of many companies that were sold off. Questions are now being raised with respect to other deals that took place involving IBRC. That is why it is critical that we have a full and open commission of investigation. The Minister will no doubt continue to prevaricate around answering questions. I was alarmed to hear Deputy Catherine Murphy raise over the course of the weekend the possibility that obtaining freedom of information data in the coming months will be highly unlikely as a consequence of the construct of this investigation.

In all of this, unfortunately, the Labour Party has turned its blind eye. It has done it before as a result of a significant decision around State assets. Labour Party Members cannot continue to keep their hands clean. It simply is not possible, because the public are aware of what is happening. They cannot, by absenting themselves from this discussion, wash their hands of the sins happening here and turn a blind eye to IBRC in the context of what is clearly the creation of a Fine Gael baby.

The Labour Party turned a blind eye to the construct of IBRC. It was a monster which became unaccountable, and it was the Minister for Finance who was the significant shareholder who, by default, hid behind that monster. The Government cannot turn a blind eye to the situation and I appeal to the Labour Party to grow a pair and to stand up for decency.

Deputy Rabbitte murmured an alarm and would have had conniptions on this side of the House. The only conniption we have seen with respect to his actions was to control the dominance of one business owner in this country with respect to private print and broadcast media by the State. It is not in any way a negative comment to the journalists who work in this House. They are some of the finest people I know, but they must find it very difficult to file copy tonight on this debate.

The Tánaiste made noises on Siteserv and called for the relevant information about the sale to be brought into the public domain. She seemed at times to be in favour of an inquiry. Instead, however, she has quietly gone along with the farce Fine Gael is now proposing. That involves a massive conflict of interest for a body being called in to review a conflict of interest because it is in the middle of it. It is disgraceful. There is nothing surprising when it comes to Fine Gael because it is abusing the position of the Labour Party in this respect. We are learning the hard way in Irish politics because the Labour Party is quite content to go along with the right-wing instincts of a Government and party which are, for the second time in my generation, going to enrich the richest people in this country by arranging these sorts of deals.

This is happening at a time when the Cabinet, in the context of low income earners, will meet to discuss putting attachment orders on families who are struggling day in and day out. There are people who cannot pay their bills, including those from Irish Water, but will have money taken directly from their social welfare payments, regardless of the impact that will have. Those who have a financial interest in Irish Water will hope that decision will go down well because Irish Water desperately needs reassurance with respect to EUROSTAT on how it will secure revenue. It will come at any cost, which will mean carpet bombing the most vulnerable people in society.

Those who exist on social protection, lone parents and those who have a few bob at the end of the week to survive will be central to a Cabinet decision about cuts to child benefit, payments for those aged under 26 years and other cuts that the Labour Party promised to safeguard against in government. The motion offers it the opportunity to redeem itself. It should support a fully independent inquiry into the sale of Siteserv, other companies, IBRC and all the transactions that have taken place. An independent commission is needed. I commend Deputy Fleming, who proposed the motion.

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