Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion before the Dáil. The reason we are here is because of the tenacity of a Deputy in pursuing an issue of public interest. Deputy Murphy pursued it through tabling numerous parliamentary questions. Unfortunately, they were not answered in accordance with what would be accepted standard norms, which is why we are having the debate this evening. Something happened in the Department on the Minister's watch, whereby questions were not answered to the satisfaction of the Deputy and she doggedly pursued the matter until such time as it was taken up by others. Eventually, after pretence and obfuscation in recent weeks, the Government was forced to establish a commission of inquiry into certain matters pertaining to IBRC and related matters. This is why we are here. The Minister knows well when one starts to untangle a web, people very quickly begin to express grave concerns about matters.

The Siteserv deal has caused much concern and numerous views have been expressed. The bottom line is that the Siteserv deal raises suspicions on its own. The fact there was a huge write-down, it was bought by Millington, a company owned by Denis O'Brien, and people involved in the purchase and sale had conflicting interests to say the very least raise suspicions, and rightly so. This in itself is a matter that should be investigated by the commission and we welcome the fact that it is specifically included in the terms of reference to ensure there is full detailed analysis of it.

Broader questions have been raised in recent weeks. I was driving home from Waterford last Thursday week when I heard that RTE could not report a statement made by Deputy Catherine Murphy in the Dáil while moving a Private Members' Bill to facilitate an investigation and give more legislative powers to the Comptroller and Auditor General to investigate certain matters. I was amazed and the fact that the national broadcaster felt unable to report the utterances of a Deputy in the House led me to believe that we were going down a very slippery slope very quickly. I wrote to the Ceann Comhairle that night when I arrived home and contacted his office the following morning. I was informed by the secretariat that under Standing Orders the Taoiseach was the only person who could recall the House. I was quite insistent that the House should be recalled as, I am quite sure, were many other Deputies because at that stage it looked like a gagging order was being placed on utterances of Members of the Dáil being reported by a national broadcaster. This in itself had a chilling effect throughout the media.

The idea that somehow it did not interfere with the freedom of Deputies to express a view is a pretence because it was clearly the opposite. Surely when Deputies speak in the House there should be unfettered media reportage with no fear of anybody being sued or libelled or being accused of defamation when reporting what happens in the Dáil. For spokespeople on behalf of Denis O'Brien to go on radio stations to say they never intended to quell the reporting of the Dáil is simply not the case because they were walking around Dublin presenting writs and court injunctions to media outlets to silence them. There was very much a deep chilling effect until the matter was clarified last week by the judge.

With regard to the recall of the Dáil, I cannot to this day understand why the Taoiseach could not have at least expressed a view to defend the Article 15 of the Constitution. That would not have interfered with the court case because he would only have been stating what the Constitution states. For the Taoiseach to hide and disappear over that week was completely unacceptable and it showed he had scant regard for the Constitution and the importance placed on Article 15 which gives Deputies the opportunity to stand up here and speak without fear of being sued because of what they say. Nobody can accuse Deputy Catherine Murphy of wild protestations or antics. She was simply raising questions which were inherently in the public interest, and the proof of this is that we are establishing a commission today to investigate the matters she raised. For all that has been stated, the way she was vilified and attacked was deeply disturbing and the silence from the Government was simply not good enough.

Mr. O'Brien claims his right to privacy has been undermined and he took a court case seeking an injunction to protect his confidentiality in his dealings with the bank, which was granted. I can understand that the average person in this country would feel their dealings with a bank should remain private, but this was no ordinary bank. It was a bank that had been taken into State ownership and propped up by State finances. If write-offs were given to anybody, it would be the taxpayer who footed the bill. Mr. O'Brien has an entitlement to privacy, but in this context the public interest overrides his right to privacy. Let us be under no illusions - there are deep concerns about potential sweetheart deals, massive write-downs, companies being sold as going concerns even though they were bust, contracts being awarded simultaneously to subsidiaries of the same company and shareholders being paid €5 million to support the deal. It all leads to suspicion at the very least, and these matters should be clarified. The fact that we have been pilloried by some news outlets for raising this matter is of huge concern to me.

It took a long time for the Taoiseach to allow a debate on the report of the Moriarty tribunal and to acknowledge that he accepted the findings of the tribunal. This just leads to further presumptions on the part of the public that there is some form of cosiness between Mr. O'Brien and Fine Gael. This is not a case of Deputy Billy Kelleher or the Opposition making wild, outlandish allegations. It is clearly outlined in the report of Mr. Justice Moriarty that payments were made to Fine Gael, including one of £50,000, which was eventually handed back.

The granting of the mobile telephone licence was another event that occurred when Deputy Noonan and the current Taoiseach were in Cabinet. People have a certain amount of suspicion when they see these names cropping up on a constant basis. The Moriarty tribunal has been completely ignored by this Government. It was debated once in this House and we do not know what has happened to it since. I tabled some Dáil questions on the matter and was told it had been referred to the DPP and elsewhere. Four years later, nothing has happened - absolutely nothing. Questions will always be asked until such time as it is brought to a conclusion one way or another. The idea that we can spend huge sums of taxpayers' money and devote endless other resources to investigating a matter of public interest such as the granting of the second mobile phone licence, only for nothing to have happened four years later, leads to a belief among the general public - and sometimes they are right - that there is a cosy relationship between the upper echelons of business and the upper echelons of Government, as identified by the Moriarty tribunal among others.

We have to restore confidence in the body politic, and this commission of inquiry will go some way towards dealing with these issues. However, there are broader concerns that will not go away until the Government, which was elected in a so-called democratic revolution of openness, transparency and accountability, steps up to the plate, because its promise in opposition to clean things up has not been delivered on. The fact that the report of the Moriarty tribunal is gathering dust in the office of the DPP is something about which the public are very suspicious.

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