Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government's draft terms of reference for the commission of investigation concerning Irish Bank Resolution Corporation has a cut-off date of 7 February 2013 which is the date of the appointment of the special liquidator. Information was passed by Sinn Féin's finance spokesperson, Deputy Pearse Doherty, to the Taoiseach so the Taoiseach has all the information and not just the part of it which was read into the record of the House yesterday. I have also seen this documentation which indicates transactions, activities and decisions beyond the date set in the Government's terms of reference. The special liquidators have disposed of €21.7 billion of loans since that date and that dwarfs the sales in the period open to the commission to look at under the Government's terms of reference. We are talking about billions of the people's money being transferred to private interests in a completely opaque way. This money could have been spent on hospitals, schools, houses and in combating poverty. They include the sale of Racing Postloans which have been criticised by a bidder as being less than transparent. It includes the sales of the mortgages of thousands of people to unregulated vultures that also fall into this timeframe. Contrary to the Minister's claims and the Minister for Finance's claims, these and the period involved are not included in the Government's terms of reference and could be subject to a legal challenge or not investigated at all if the terms of reference are not amended.

One of Sinn Féin's amendments proposes that the relevant period be from 12 January 2009 to 12 March 2015, inclusive, in order to cover all of these transactions. That is what Fianna Fáil should support if the Government does not signal clearly that it will accept our amendment. Will the Government accept our amendment and change the terms of reference accordingly?

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