Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

There is something incredibly shallow and underwhelming about this debate. I feel like groaning at the shocking, here-we-go-again nature of what is in front of us. It is yet another inquiry. It is yet another investigation into questionable practices at the highest levels. Yet more questions are being raised about the undue influence of a businessman over decisions that affect the public interest and cost the public purse money.

My starting point is that the fact that we have a commission of investigation is not necessarily something about which we should be patting ourselves on the back. The Minister, Deputy Heather Humphreys, says the public has a right to know and this is the best way forward. The Government did not think this was the best way forward when people were giving out about it a week or two ago. I would say that the fact that this commission is taking place is, rather than a vindication of the greatness of the Minister for Finance, a huge indictment of him and of his Department that it has got to this stage.

I note in the statement of the reasons set out in the commission's terms of reference that it refers to new allegations being taken into account and the perceived or potential conflicts of interest that have been publicly raised. This is why the Government decided finally to give in to the idea of a commission. Presumably this means that it saw no potential conflict of interest in appointing Kieran Wallace of KPMG in the first place, despite his role in the sale originally. The reason the Government is doing it now is that the conflicts of interest have been, as the Minister says, publicly raised. However, the entire public were giving out about this and realised that conflict. In fact, the members of the Government were the only ones who seemed to be ignoring it over the past period of time. What is probably more shocking in some ways, apart from the incredible ignorance of the Minister's behaviour at the moment, is that despite all of the noise and the pressure being piled on by Deputy Catherine Murphy and others about the conflicts of interest, her demands and demands from this side of the House were being relentlessly fobbed off by the Government. In fact, the only reason really that we are getting the commission of investigation is that the Government's friend, Denis O'Brien, probably after years of getting his own way by bullying and intimidating the media into silence, decided that he would overstep the mark and go too far so that even the Government could not cover up for its friendly oligarch. The rules had been broken. Denis O'Brien overstepped the mark and even the Government could not cover up that situation.

I am reminded of the words of Liam Hamilton with regard to the beef tribunal. He said at the time that if the parliamentary questions had been answered, there would have been no need for the expense of the tribunal. Here we are again with the same civil servant-speak, the same culture of not answering questions, of deliberately designing answers in a manner which conceals information rather than giving Deputies information. Why did it take Deputy Catherine Murphy 19 questions and a freedom of information request? Why did it take Deputy Wallace to be ignored last October when these issues were raised? Why does a culture of secrecy prevail within various Departments which seem to forget that they are there to serve the public and to do their job in the public interest? How is it that documents are found down the back of a filing cabinet which were not there before? This is an appalling indictment of our system. We have tribunals, investigations and inquiries, and we seem to keep coming up here. Information has to be extracted like blood from a stone and, at the end of it, nothing changes.

A cynical person would begin to think that these tribunals and investigations are not actually being undertaken to effect change but rather that they are being commissioned as a distraction. Most people would think that there is something incredibly tediously inevitable about the fact of question marks over the sale of Siteserv, the writing-off of €119 million of a debt by a nationalised bank. There is something inevitable about this being bound up with Irish Water and the awarding of public contracts for the installation of water meters. The reality is that it is incredibly tedious and obviously the Ministers find it so, but that is the way business is done in this country. This is the nature of how Irish capitalism is served by those at the top. There is no necessity for anybody to have to break the law in order to pick the public's pockets; it is perfectly easy and entirely legal and it has been going on for years. What is striking about the current situation is that the holier-than-thou merchants on that side of the House have spent years casting Fianna Fáil members off for their role in this and now they have been found out to be exactly the same as them. How sickening that must be for the Government. We have had to listen to Denis O'Brien talk about his good name but I do not think that is actually proven. In fact, I would say that as a result of the findings of the Moriarty tribunal, on evidence-based conclusive facts, we are entitled to say otherwise.

The protestations of Denis O'Brien that his great wealth and the origins of it lie in his entrepreneurial skills and risk-taking have been proven to be false. They lie in the corrupt payments that were at the heart of the tribunal and the corrupt payments to Deputy Michael Lowry. The evidence stated quite clearly that the information passed on by the then Minister, Deputy Michael Lowry, to Denis O'Brien was of significant value and assistance to him in securing the Esat licence. It was not just the amount of money; it was the elaborate deception and the lengths they undertook to cover it up. That wealth was used as the basis of an empire which bought an excessive influence in Irish media outlets which has played a role in dictating public opinion by characterising, falsely in my opinion, dissent and opposition in this country and it has had a very serious effect. It is a mark of the brass neck of Denis O'Brien and of the Government's toothlessness in the area of media monopoly that Leslie Buckley announced at the Independent News and Media AGM last week that they plan to spend another €100 million on buying up media sector acquisitions in Ireland and the UK. They are not ruling out the possibility of buying TV3. In my view, this announcement would suggest that Denis O'Brien is putting it up to the Government while laughing behind his hand, confident that he will get an extension of his media influence, and why would he not be confident, based on everything that the Government has done thus far? He stood over a system whereby any gains from his private speculation were privatised and pocketed by him and the losses are socialised and paid for by the Irish public. It is a gambler's dream; heads they win, tails we lose. A banana republic would be proud of it.

There has been much talk from Denis O'Brien about his rights to privacy and the rights of the private citizen. I have heard Fine Gael Deputies argue the point here earlier tonight. Let us look at the rights of the private citizen. Let us look at the rights of citizen taxpayer. Those who have paid the price of these write-downs and these special deals are the home owners who cannot get a write-down, the people who cannot get a medical card, the people who cannot get an SNA for their young person. We were all told to tighten our belts but, guess what, some of us did not have to. In fact, if a person is well connected with the Government establishment not only does he or she not have to tighten their belt, but he or she can actually look forward to loosening the trouser button because that person will be very well looked after.

I welcome the fact that the over-zealousness of Denis O'Brien has got us to a place where we can look at the whole issue of parliamentary privilege. This Chamber has played a useful role in assisting the public and ordinary citizens to advance issues that are important to them. In this era of litigation where the powerful can use their influence and money, quite often ordinary citizens are silent. We had the exact same scenario with regard to the penalty points issue. When we tried to raise issues in this House, questions that were validly tabled were ruled out of order by the Ceann Comhairle and it was only by putting issues on the record of the House that the media was then able to take that issue and run with it. Parliamentary privilege is a very valid right but it is a bit rich of some people who are claiming to defend it now.

There is a very great irony about the role of the Labour Party in this situation. If the Labour Party was in opposition, the shrieks of the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, and the sneers of Deputy Pat Rabbitte would be heard by Denis O'Brien at home in Malta. There is no question about it. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, the great defender, used to be the champion of these commissions and of the unravelling of corruption wherever it raised its head in the past.

The silence of these lambs is absolutely deafening. It is history repeating itself; although Dick Spring played a very good role early on in the beef tribunal, after the report was published he equivocated. He did not see it through because Labour was in power and its members wanted to look after themselves ahead of anybody else. They got their comeuppance that time and they will get it this time as well.

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