John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Somebody said to me during the week that the more this issue drags on the more it resembles a scene from the Mad Hatter's tea party. "We had a problem," was followed by "No, there is not a problem." "We need an inquiry," was followed by "An inquiry would be inappropriate," and then "An inquiry is exactly what we need." "The Siteserv write-down taken by IBRC was €110 million," became "No, it was €119 million." "The minutes for certain IBRC board meetings do not exist," turned into "No, here they are after all."

That is the public perception of what has been happening over the past month. No matter how much it might feel like it, though, it is not in reality a tumble down a rabbit hole, nor is it a child's bedtime story. This is very serious. Large loans extended by a wholly State-owned bank, IBRC, resulted in the loss of millions to taxpayers, including in the case of the controversial Siteserv transaction. It was said in the press that IBRC, the ruins of a bank, was originally propped up so that business could continue as normal. What is "normal", however? Is it normal for bondholders to be repaid every cent? These are gamblers of the highest order who were no doubt gobsmacked at their good fortune. Was it normal that a rake of taxes, charges and levies and cuts in social welfare, education and health were heaped upon ordinary working class citizens to cover these costs? These taxpayers are surely now entitled to know if, in the wake of the hardship they suffered, the maximum return possible was achieved by the sale of Siteserv.

Was it normal for the same legal advisers to act for both the buyer and seller in the sale of Siteserv by IBRC? This is what people are asking. Was it normal that KPMG, which advised on the sale of Siteserv and whose personnel were involved in that company, was also involved in the liquidation of IBRC and was then paid to investigate the sale of the company? What are we at here?

Taxpayers have footed the bill for this and so many other transactions and they now have the right to know exactly how much each property within the remit of NAMA, for example, was bought for and sold on for and to whom it was sold. We do not know that and we have a right to know that. My colleague, Deputy Catherine Murphy, has for many months been requesting an inquiry into IBRC and the sale of Siteserv. It has taken 19 parliamentary questions to get a straight answer from the Minister for Finance. Over the months when she was asking the questions, she told me she was submitting question after question and getting nothing back. Is this normal practice from a Government Department? Deputy Murphy deserves high praise for her determination to get to the bottom of this case, and her diligence appears to have paid off, but serious questions need to be asked regarding the way the information had to be dragged out of the Government over many months, particularly regarding Siteserv. The reluctance to investigate and report quickly to the Dáil when the issue emerged was, no matter how it is dressed up, a delaying tactic. Maybe the idea was to make Deputy Murphy tire and say "I've had enough. I can't go any further with it." She did not give up, of course.

It is crucial that the inquiry has in its remit the question of how the whole IBRC operation interacted with and was overseen by the Department of Finance and the Central Bank in the context of the transactions it is examining. This is especially important in light of the barriers which have been placed in front of Opposition Deputies in the past couple of months as they tried to probe and access these controversial issues. The fact that a Government Department attempted to fob off an elected representative over controversial issues in itself merits an independent investigation. I would be curious to know whether any Fine Gael Deputy is willing to go on record and state whether the actions by the Department and the Minister have been examined by the party. There is something not right when it takes 19 parliamentary questions and months of investigation by a parliamentarian to bring it to this stage. All this does is to further erode the public's trust in the political system as they have followed the issue over the past weeks and months.

Serious questions also need to be asked about the way reporting by the mainstream media was influenced by money and power. Last week Irish people were relying on the international media to report on what was happening in our own Parliament. This cannot be right and it should never, ever have been the case. I myself was out of the country and it was embarrassing to meet people who were able to tell me what was and was not being said, and that what should be reported was not being reported. It could not be reported by the press, RTE or even a Dáil Deputy outside the Parliament. We became a laughing stock in the media around the world. It would not do any harm for us to read some of the statements and editorials on how the media reported this in Ireland, while Dáil Deputies were prohibited from speaking and threatened with consequences if they spoke outside the Dáil on the issue.

Dáil privilege has been described by the Supreme Court as a cornerstone of Ireland's democracy. Hence, the questioning of it by Denis O'Brien's spokesman does not bode well for democracy in Ireland. People should listen carefully to the NUJ. Whatever one's opinions may be of unions, people should listen to the NUJ when it says that it has long warned that our media imbalance lets the powerful off the hook. In the wake of this controversy, there is an onus on the Government to examine our defamation laws and to assess whether they are fit for purpose. I am not too sure anymore, in light of what has happened.

Previous speakers have correctly pointed out that this inquiry will be a massive task. The former IBRC chief, Mike Aynsley, has suggested that over €1 billion worth of write-downs might fall under its remit. However, it is crucial that all transactions, even those below the €10 million threshold, are examined. We need to have everything examined in this inquiry, no matter how far down we must dig. Everybody should be wary in a democracy when one month ago, there was no problem but where we have now reached a stage where we have been debating this in the Dáil for two solid weeks, the NUJ has given a crucial warning to people about the influence of the media and the media in Ireland, particularly RTE, was unable to report on an issue that is a cornerstone of our democracy, namely, freedom of speech.

Members of the Dáil had to go to The Observer or The Guardianin England or to the Spanish news, which were reporting all this when we could not. It is rather shameful and disappointing. I am not blaming the Minister for that, but I found it sad and disappointing when I spoke to people outside the country. As a Member of the Irish Parliament, I was restricted and people were asking how it was that they could speak about what was happening in Ireland but all the Irish newspapers, RTE and all the television and radio programmes could not? How does that look for us in Europe? How does it look for democracy? After all of this, there must be some discussion on how we can deal with the press and the media moguls who think they control the press. Not only do they think they control the press but they think they control what Members in the Dáil say and how they say it. That is the difficulty in Irish democracy.

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