David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

They were mistakes on the Government's part. It could be said they were intentional but at the time we pointed out, as others did, that there were flaws in the establishment of the previous commission and in the liquidation of IBRC. This is what happens when things are kicked down the road. This Bill is evidence of the inability of Fine Gael and this Government to deal with complex issues. It is also an indictment of the so-called new politics of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil which so far has been predicated on setting up commissions and committees, putting Bills on hold for 12 months and more, in fact doing everything they can to put things on the long finger, rather than make any real decisions but kick the big important ones down the road. It has done this not only with IBRC and Siteserv, but also with the issue of fatal foetal abnormalities, water, bin charges, and workers' rights.

Here we are back again to make another attempt at cleaning up this mess. We can guarantee that we will be back in the near future. Let us not, however, forget the root of this problem, the bad decision to rush through legislation liquidating a bank in the middle of the night some years ago. I was in the Seanad at the time when the Minister for Finance came from the Dáil Chamber where very little time was given to the Opposition - I think it was 15 minutes for Committee Stage. My party in the Seanad was given one minute and 30 seconds to state its case and hold the Government to account on that Bill and to consider its wideranging implications. It was rushed through and we are now dealing with the consequences. It is not the first time that has happened.

IBRC took over the bones of the completely discredited Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. These banks have cost the Irish people billions of euro. They became the excuse for Fianna Fáil and then Fine Gael and Labour to hollow out the rights and the public services of the Irish people. The history of banking in this State is that there were retail banks and some investment banks, which moved to being gambling banks. It was as if we took the casinos from Las Vegas and moved them to Ireland. They became outrageous gambling banks and the Irish people have been left paying the price for that. Casino capitalism took hold. There was light touch regulation and cheap credit was made available to these banks. Land was rezoned on a grand scale, there were tax breaks for developers and the golden circle came into its own. The banks were the so-called tigers of the economy. All the people associated with these banks were lionised as wealth-creators when in reality they were engaged on a mad gambling spree.

When he spoke at a function in September 2005, at a time when Anglo Irish Bank was racking up spiralling debts and behaving in a most reckless fashion, the bank's then CEO, Seán FitzPatrick, said:

It was as if, overnight, we discovered just how good we were. We were bright, well-educated, flexible, good-natured, creative and even hardworking. The Paddy stopped drinking G&Ts before the three-course, three-hour lunch and found Ballygowan, the bowl of soup and the hang sandwich. We had ideas, and we had balls ... And all the time as we worked the scene and maximised the moment, the world watched in astonishment.

The world certainly watched in astonishment when the house of cards came tumbling down, the casino capitalism came to an end and all of these so-called wealth creators, who were lionised by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and sections of the media, were seen to be the frauds they were. That is the reality. Their inactions and greed have landed us where we are today. That is why we are back debating legislation on the IBRC. Responsibility for this mess must be taken by the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, his Government colleagues and those whose support of casino capitalism contributed to the creation of this mess in the first place.

It could be argued that all the banks were bad. Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide were two of the worst offenders. There can be no doubt that we are still paying the price for the criminal behaviour of some people at the top of these banks. In May 2008, four months before the crisis broke, David Drumm of Anglo Irish Bank told The Irish Timesthat the economic downturn would present a chance to see "the other side of the show". How right he was. Unfortunately, the other side of the show involved the taxpayer having to bail out these banks. The Irish people had their so-called rainy day fund - the National Pensions Reserve Fund - robbed from them and used to recapitalise the banks, or so the story goes. In reality, taxpayers' money was used to bail out the banks on foot of their reckless lending. What did that mean? Those who depend on public services, such as our education system and our hospitals, paid the price. That is the legacy of the bankers. That is the other side of the show that the Irish people really saw. This crisis gave the Irish people a rude awakening in terms of how power and influence work in this State. Many good books have been written about this period. They show how greedy elites and powerful golden circles controlled policy and the banks. There continues to be a special relationship between the conservative political parties and the so-called wealth creators. Billionaires who do not pay tax in this country think they can do and say what they like while attempting to frustrate commissions of inquiry. We all know who they are. They support some of the parties in this Chamber.

The IBRC was formed three years after the crisis first broke. Two years later, a monster was created by the special liquidation of the IBRC. Not surprisingly, many questions about the liquidation of the IBRC have gone unanswered. On the night it was liquidated, the Dáil was given 15 minutes on Committee Stage to debate the Bill providing for the liquidation. In all the subsequent media debates and commentary, my party and others quite rightly pointed out that we would be back here again. The Government told us this would not happen because the legislation in question was well thought out and represented the way forward. We can see what happened thereafter. The Bill was signed by President Higgins at 7 o'clock on a Wednesday morning, less than ten hours after its First Reading. It was almost unprecedented. The President had been rushed back to Ireland that night from an official visit to Rome to ensure the smooth passage of the Bill.

The Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Act 2013 was summed up by the media as offering the Irish people "a much-needed psychological boost" but little else. I think it was a disgrace that some people in the media did the job of the Government at the time. They sold the legislation as something it was not. They were not prepared to tell the truth about what the legislation entailed, what exactly was happening and who was going to pay the price. The people who should have paid the price for what happened in this country were let off the hook. Not for the first time, some people in the media missed the true nature of what was going on. We witnessed a cover-up that continues to this day, involving some of the most powerful people in the State. I refer, for example, to billionaires who do not pay tax but instead lecture the rest of us, threaten elected representatives and others and prefer to pass brown envelopes to elected officials. The brown envelope culture that threatened people's very attachment to politics in this State is another terrible legacy of the so-called Celtic tiger. Even now, events following the liquidation of the IBRC are out of bounds under the Bill before the House. Even if this commission of investigation is successful, it will not reveal the full story of what happened at the IBRC and to the Irish people's money.

When Sinn Féin started asking the first questions about write-downs at the IBRC, the Minister for Finance, the Taoiseach and their Government colleagues did not take us seriously. It took a lot of work and cajoling for the Minister to accept there was a problem. The Taoiseach decided off the top off his head to appoint the Comptroller and Auditor General to look into the issue. We eventually we got a commission of investigation. This is a complex legal issue. Clearly, the first attempt to set up a commission to do this job was a failure. It was signalled at the time that this would happen. The commission that was created by the Oireachtas in June 2015 was supposed to finish its work by December of that year, but the Taoiseach has extended this timeframe until the end of October 2016. It always seems to be the same thing in this State. We set up commissions and give them deadlines, but we end up having to come back and extend those deadlines because we have not thought it out and we have not given the commissions the powers they need.

The Teachta Dála who interrupted me earlier was right when he suggested this was not an accident. I do not think it was an accident that the commission was set up as it was. In my view, the intention of the Government at the time was to frustrate real progress and to hinder efforts to get to the truth. Many elements of what is wrong with this State are at play here, including the desire of the golden circles that have ruled it for so long to ensure their secrets are not unearthed. In November of last year, a shocking interim report listed - chapter and verse - the reasons the commission was not fit for purpose. Everything came shuddering to a halt. Panic set in among the officials who had to revisit the legislation. The legal advice from the Attorney General at the time should have been published, as we in Sinn Féin called for. We must get this right now. In my view, we will not have a third opportunity to do so. We cannot keep coming back at this over and again. We have to get it right.

I must compare the enthusiasm from the Fianna Fáil benches today to that party's sudden and inexplicable U-turn on NAMA investigations. As always, the two faces of Fianna Fáil exist side by side. It was quite incredible to listen to Deputy Calleary talking about greed, the problems in the banks and what happened in Anglo Irish Bank as if his party was somehow exonerated from having any hand, act or part in this. Every time Fianna Fáil speaks on this issue, I am reminded of the infamous episode of "Dallas" when Bobby Ewing emerged from the shower. In the case of Fianna Fáil, it is as if the last five years did not happen. That is what it is trying to present to the Irish people. It has mastered such tactics, but it should be reminded at every opportunity that it is the party which is primarily responsible for this mess. It fostered the greed in the banks, put light-touch regulation in place, allowed reckless borrowing and lending to happen and facilitated the speculation that devastated the lives of many people. These were not victimless crimes. The corruption that flowed from this politics was not a victimless crime. Bad planning happened as a consequence of this form of politics. Who paid the price when this house of cards came down? The bankers, the small number of policy makers in government and in the Department of Finance and the small elite in the golden circle did not pay the price for the decisions that required billions of euro to be spent, as I have outlined. Children in schools, people on hospital trolleys and those who are told they cannot have decent contracts of work are still paying the price of those decisions to this day. It is in that context that a Fianna Fáil Deputy has shown the brass neck to talk in this House about what went wrong in the last decade, as if it had no responsibility for the era in question.

In his letter, the Taoiseach speaks of the dangers of litigation inherent in this proposal. I fear he is right, but the country cannot stop because lawyers and, in particular, one client, believes he has the power to stop any investigation he wishes. There is always a danger of litigation, but that is not a valid reason to stop looking down holes.

The views of the public may not be fully focused on this issue at the moment but I do not believe for a second that all is forgotten. People know instinctively that this commission of investigation is looking into serious matters of fairness in our country. This is about people's money being treated preciously rather than being carved up among friends, among the elite.

We need only look at how abhorrent Fine Gael and the Labour Party were when it came to creating this commission to know that some uncomfortable truths might come out of it. The public will not let us off the hook for failing to correct this legislation. They remember what sparked this. It was allegations that certain people were getting sweetheart deals. That sounded and it still sounds like a perfectly reasonable possibility. For decades, this society has suffered from corruption at the top. Golden circles have operated with impunity and still do to this day. No one in his right mind believes that the corruption that was endemic in Irish politics is gone. We see it happening again in NAMA with all manner of allegations being made and the calls for commissions of inquiry into various deals again set front and centre in Irish politics. All of this is because of the failure of the State to deal with these problems and the way it has allowed the people in the golden circle to do what they wish. Politicians, businessmen and many others see themselves as out of reach, above the law and not subject to the same rules as the rest of us. The tiny numbers that have seen the inside of a prison cell in consequence prove that they are not completely wrong. To this day, it remains a sore for many people that those who were behind the greed, corruption and casino capitalism were not brought to book. Their recklessness in managing the economy, in particular, the way they managed the banks and ran those banks into the ground, led to these two banks becoming liquidated in the first place. These people have not been properly held to account.

Many people believe the State will never truly hold these people to account because that is not the way we do it - we like to protect these people. They are above the law and deemed to be respectable. If ordinary people do not pay their television licence or water charges because they see the charges as unfair, they are threatened with court action, yet these other people can act with impunity. This two-tier society and approach to law and order is the problem. The Deputies in the Government party see themselves as part of a law and order party. That is their view when it comes to working class people put not when it comes to their friends in high places and the golden circle. They take a completely different view when it comes to how they operate in this State.

I do not believe anyone was surprised that the special liquidators kicked up a fuss when the commission came sniffing around. The people in KPMG are the wrong people for this job. They are part of the protected elite and have so many fingers in pies in this State that there is no way they should ever have carried out this job. People from KPMG were the auditors at Irish Nationwide, one chunk of IBRC. They have an interest in this legislation that goes beyond what they are being paid for. Their role in the special liquidation was like appointing a poacher as gamekeeper. Their interests are not those of the people. However, their pockets are certainly lined with the people's money to the tune of €5 million in fees and counting. It is the same thing over and over again. The same companies are involved in the same scandals and unfairness in the use of taxpayers' money. Again, it continues and nothing is done about it. We turn a blind eye and pretend there is no problem, or at least some people do. However, there are some among us who do not act in this way. There are those of us who shine a spotlight on these issues.

I remember clearly the comments of a previous Taoiseach. Some of us spoke about the problems with greed, light touch regulation and reckless spending and borrowing. We spoke about the economy being a runaway train. He said that we were naysayers who should consider committing suicide. That is how opposition voices were labelled. This applied not only to those in opposition in the political system, but also to economists who called it right. That is how we were treated and that is how we are still treated to this day. They take the view that there is nothing to see here and that people should move along. Each time we try to shine a spotlight on any of this activity, the response is always the same - it is consistent. Why is that the case? We must try to carry on despite what obstacles will be put in the way.

The new power given to the Minister to direct the special liquidators is at the core of this Bill and is long overdue. The Minister should not be hesitant in using this power as necessary. The Taoiseach speaks of introducing a modular approach. For my party, the Siteserv transaction must be the focus of the first module. It is the reason we have a commission of investigation and it is where the public interest is most focused. It is logical, clearly, to home in on the largest transactions. The extension of the deadline for the report is to be moved. It is important to send a clear signal that only in exceptional circumstances will any further extension be considered. If there are to be discrete modules, then interim reports should be published as they are completed. Any increase in the commission's budget must be justified and implemented tightly.

I will finish with a number of important points. I spoke at length about what led us here in the first place and what brought us to this point. Earlier, I mentioned that there are victims. The victims of all of this are the people who those of us in this Chamber should be representing. Collectively, we must ensure these things do not happen again. We can only do so if we have policies to ensure that the State has an important role to play in regulating the banks and ensuring that people are not above the law, including billionaire businessmen and women who should pay their taxes in the State and who should be subject to the same laws as the rest of us. We have a role to play to ensure that we do not allow our banks to behave in an inappropriate way. We have a particular responsibility to ensure that we do not spend taxpayers' money to bail out these people each time they make a mistake.

I remember clearly the height of the Celtic tiger. At the time, politicians from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and those who championed the rights of the banks told us that the State should stick its nose out of the free market and out of the banks. We were told to let the banks do what the banks do and that the rising tide would lift all boats. That was the mantra from the Government at the time. What happened? We know what happened. We had a bad crash and the people who were responsible for it walked away clean while ordinary people had to pay the price. In my part of the country, the south east, unemployment is still at 12.5%. People are on hospital trolleys throughout the State. Children go to school hungry. There is extensive poverty and inequality. Despite this, we still have these people at the top on vast salaries. Some of them are billionaires who do not pay tax. Some people in this Chamber think that is okay and we should continue with that. It is not okay and we need to change course.

I support the Bill only in that it seeks to deal with some of the concerns that have been raised by the sole member of the commission. I sincerely hope this legislation will improve the workings of the commission. I know there will be a final report and that some recommendations will flow from it. However, I am certain they will fall far short of what is actually necessary. I also hope the commission can really deal with the issues raised by many Deputies in respect of Siteserv and many other issues that flowed from the liquidation of IBRC as well.

I and my party are supporting the Bill only because we want to improve the work of the commission. We sincerely hope that it plays some small part in getting to the bottom of the many wrongs at the heart of how those two banks operated and how IBRC is now operating as well.

See this speech in context