Dáil debates

Tuesday, 8 December 2015

3:45 pm

Photo of Catherine MurphyCatherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I also express my revulsion at what I saw last night on the "RTE Investigates" unit programme. While it was sickening, I cannot honestly say I am hugely surprised. The culture of non-compliance and the absence of effective enforcement ensures an utter lack of transparency in corporate and political life. It is a system that the public instinctively mistrusts. We have had the banking inquiry, the Cregan inquiry, the Fennelly inquiry and the Moriarty tribunal. Round and round we go, and we will keep doing that until the penny drops. Unless we implement an effective and modern system with real consequences, nothing will change.

The lack of consequences drives people nuts. The refrain is that "Nothing ever changes" or "Nothing ever happens and there are no consequences". I hear that over and over again. I do not know how many times I have heard people say to me, over the past year in particular, that they genuinely expected a change after 2011 when the Taoiseach promised them a democratic revolution and that he would end the toxic political culture. Things have not changed and we saw that last night.

The Taoiseach wrote to me last Friday regarding the problems with the Cregan inquiry, the investigation into IBRC and transactions involving Siteserv and Topaz, which was in the news recently. With respect, the letter appears to kick these issues to touch given that the measures require emergency legislation which does not appear to be on the agenda, at least this side of a general election. In the same way, the legislation to tackle corruption like that seen on the "RTE Investigates" programme last night has been put beyond the general election. The story never changes. There are a lot of words, but what we need is action.

In recent days Topaz was sold at a significant profit by the person who purchased it at a significant discount from IBRC, the same person who acquired Siteserv from IBRC at a significant discount. At the same time he was one of the biggest debtors of IBRC. Both of these transactions were flagged by Department officials as being included in the six large transactions about which the Department had serious concerns in terms of the poor quality of decisions made by the board of IBRC.

Given that the Mahon tribunal in 2012 found endemic and systemic corruption in political life and the Moriarty tribunal in 2011 was critical of the political culture and clandestine donations, it is hard to be shocked by last night's television programme. When are we going to accept that a new regime is required to tackle corruption in Irish life? The subject of today's Private Members' motion is an anti-corruption agency. It is a document published by the Social Democrats which I sent to the Taoiseach last week. It will be very interesting to see whether the motion is agreed or an amendment is passed. It proposes the kind of system that is in place in other countries where corruption has been identified and where there has been a comprehensive response to it. I urge the Taoiseach to read the paper with a view to accepting the proposal.

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