Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

To renegotiate the €3 billion promissory note was a significant achievement. Of course it had costs and did not come free, but I challenge the people who said they had alternatives to set them out and cost them. For example, they should identify the consequences for pensioners who rely on the State pension. On my part, it was five years' work to protect those social welfare payments when others in international institutions would have seen them dramatically reduced, as happened in the two years that Fianna Fáil was in government after the financial crash.

In examining this legislation, I am not a lawyer so I will not comment on the amendments. I do not know if there are many people here who are qualified to comment in detail on the amendments which this legislation represents to the original terms of reference. The key thing is that the judge carrying out the investigation should have access to resources, facilities, powers and the capacity, if he so wishes, to go to the High Court. He or she should be able to deal in a competent and timely manner with all the matters which are raised. That is the critical issue.

Notwithstanding the initial queries which were raised by Deputy Catherine Murphy, there was a period in this House when others became involved in the debate and wished to expand the terms of reference to such an extent that I am not sure how long it would have taken to deal with them all. Deputy Catherine Murphy probably has a clearer idea.

It is nice to think that one will be able to investigate everything, but I hope this legislation will allow a focus on those issues that are critical in terms of the questions which were put. I also hope that in the context of the investigation we will then be able to identify better mechanisms in the Dáil whereby questions can be answered. In my view, had Deputy Catherine Murphy been able to get comprehensive answers to her questions - I do not necessarily have a solution, but perhaps by being briefed in detail and being able to interact with some of the officials dealing with the issues, and not simply with the Minister on the floor of the House - much of the commission's work could have been avoided.

That point is important because with new politics it is inevitable that we will potentially see a lot more commissions, which are expensive exercises. Social expenditure is significant, but if one has to spend vast amounts on commissions that will clearly restrict the sums that would otherwise be available for critical areas like health and education. Nonetheless, if we can get the answers it is money worth spending. I hope, however, that we will also get some advice and insight into how the Dáil can deal as well as possible with answering questions when they are first asked. A mechanism must be found to do so.

As Tánaiste, I know that from time to time Deputies tabled extremely complex questions about individuals - particularly individuals with businesses in the North - whom I personally had never heard of. They demanded an answer there and then which of course they are entitled to do under the rules of the Dáil. In all honesty, however, I was not in any position to give an answer because I was hearing about names, transactions, amounts and actions, in detail, of which I had no knowledge. Nor could I have any knowledge of them. I simply had no involvement in that particular area. I hope therefore that we will ultimately be able to use this legislation to make the Dáil function in a much better way than it has done up to now concerning inquiries and parliamentary questions.

I imagine that the concentration of much of the inquiry will inevitably be in relation to Siteserv. It is important it should be and that those questions are answered. It will be a matter for the judge to determine the inclusion or exclusion of specific transactions based on the powers as well as the actual terms of reference. Hopefully, that will facilitate a broader scope of inquiry and will allow witnesses to participate. It will also allow for other matters, which were raised at various times in parliamentary questions, concerning share trades. Inevitably though, the main area of focus will be on the issues around Siteserv. It is important that those should be addressed.

Special liquidators have also been mentioned and it is important that comprehensive answers should be available to any questions on them.

We also have the question of write-offs which were incurred at IBRC on the sale of Siteserv. I took part in the debate on the creation of NAMA. I was extremely critical and did not support the formation of NAMA. However, once it was formed as the State's bad bank for the purpose of rescuing what remained of our banking system at the time, it was literally impossible to untangle it at that point.

In terms of a banking collapse and looking at what is happening to Italian banks at the moment, once banks have adequate liquidity by and large they keep going, assuming that in the long run they make a minimum level of profit. They need solvency, as well as an appropriate ratio between their loans, deposits and borrowing.

It was suggested in relation to the Irish banking collapse that there was a liquidity problem, including in Anglo Irish Bank which, in turn, became the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, but that that was not a solvency issue, which was probably the biggest weakness in all of the discussions that took place. People in the Dáil, the Department of Finance and the Central Bank were terrified even to allow the term "solvency" to be discussed because banks are about confidence and once confidence is lost in a bank, even a small bank or credit union, creditors, depositors and so on tend to want to get their money bank and this leads to the business of the banks diminishing and inevitably in a crisis such as happened here in 2008, the collapse of the banking sector.

There has been much mention of Mr. O'Brien. I hope that any connections or transactions he has had will be, if and where appropriate, properly examined and that the questions that people have raised will be answered in the report.

When we discussed what led to the crisis, I said that the key contributor was the crazy tax breaks given to developers and those known as high net worth people. I noted in recent weeks a development that we need to be careful about. We have a housing crisis and we need to build a huge amount of additional houses every year to cater for social housing and particularly to cater for affordable housing for young people who have been working since 2004, 2007 or 2008 and who now either individually or as part of a couple with a family want to buy a house. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, who has responsibility for housing, has put forward a proposal - I do not know if it has been agreed by the committee-----

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