Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The situation that arose in respect of the case mentioned by the Deputy happened in the House. To define a response to it, when the entire Oireachtas wanted an answer to the question, and following a case made by quite a number of Deputies, a facility was put in place. Mr. Justice Cregan made his determination in respect of particular aspects of that. I am as open to new ideas as anybody else, and I look forward to hearing the contributions from Deputy Murphy and others today.

We would all like to think we could have an immediate answer to an issue that is raised. If somebody in the House makes a comment, statement or allegation, as the case may be, which is a matter of public interest or concern, to prove it is not that simple. It is an easy thing to make a statement, but to find a facility to have it proven is the question. The Deputy put forward her views and I look forward to hearing her contribution to the Private Members' debate.

The Bill I mentioned to Deputy Adams is one that will bring absolute independence to a regulator. It will have the authority to oversee processes to evaluate and investigate issues that may arise in the course of any of the areas I mentioned. It will also include the current facilities that are completely independent, such as the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Criminal Assets Bureau, the fraud squad and so on. The Government condemns all instances of corruption, anti-competitive behaviour, breaches of ethics legislation, breaches of the Companies Acts and all other forms of white-collar crime.

I recognise there is a need for a strong public standards legislation system and to prevent wrongdoing on behalf of elected or public officials.

The Ombudsman (Amendment) Act 2012, the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015, the Freedom of Information Act 2014 and the major overhaul of the Companies Act 2014 were major pieces of legislation to put in place objectivity and a standard by which proper business should be conducted. The amalgamation of the Competition Authority and the National Consumer Agency into the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission was also a worthy advance. Quite a number of improvements have been made to legislation enabling the investigation into, and prosecution of, white collar crime, which was occasioned by the Criminal Justice Act 2011. I hope the improvements in respect of the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal dealing with unethical and corrupt behaviour will come to the Government next week. They will be introduced in the forthcoming public sector standards Bill and the criminal justice (corruption) Bill.

All of these are areas that cover particular sectors and they are in the interests of having transparency, accountability, confidence and trust. As I said, I look forward to hearing the presentations and contributions from the Deputy and her colleagues, but we need a system which is able to provide answers to questions, given that we went on a particular route arising from legitimate queries and questions from people. It is never as easy to find and prove an answer as it is to make a comment or give a piece of information to the House.

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