Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

What is most frightening, worrying, alarming and shocking is the basic lack of competence that has been revealed in this case. Given that the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has ultimate responsibility for the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, the Minister and her officials have questions to answer. How did we end up with an agency that was not competent to do its most critical task? I do not believe the answer is related to a lack of resources. Six or seven years ago, towards the end of the Green Party's time in government, we requested a meeting with the then Director of Corporate Enforcement and specifically asked him whether the office had the resources it needed to carry out the critical task of identifying, among the carnage left by the banking crash, whether cases could be brought that would restore public confidence in the idea that inappropriate corporate activities would have consequences. We were given a clear and categorical commitment that resources were not a problem. I understand from reading more recent accounts that at critical times in the process, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement was offered additional resources at every turn to manage what everyone knew would be some of the most critical cases in the history of the State in terms of restoring and building confidence in the judicial system.

For the past six or seven years, everyone has known that maintaining and restoring public confidence in the State has been one of the most important tasks facing us. What was revealed in the judicial decision to pull the recent case is incredibly worrying. While we must maintain due process in the judicial system, one of the strengths of this country, we must also ask why an agency utterly failed in its task to build an investigation in a proper, legal and considered manner. As well as the view that some people got away with things in the crash because we were unable or unwilling to prosecute, there is also a concern that from now on, the rest of the business world will conduct its activities without fear of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.

Change is required. The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement must maintain a rigorous guard over the accountancy profession, which failed completely before the crash to identify widespread inappropriate and illegal lending. In the legal profession, solicitors were signing off and approving conveyancing and documents where there was not proper title or the paperwork was incomplete. The legal system must know that the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement is an A-rated, top-quality agency which always does its job. I am certain the profession does not believe that is the case today. Last but not least, the banking system must know that the final arbiter, namely, the courts, is in a position to completely hammer out illegal activity in the banking system. That faith has been shattered by the judgment delivered this week.

The Department, as the parent body of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, has a responsibility to find out why the agency was not competent to do its job. The Minister must present clear mechanisms for restoring public confidence in both the ODCE and the judicial system and ensuring business people know they are operating in an environment in which ethics and the rule of law apply. This must be done quickly because once public exasperation sets in, it is very hard to win back confidence. We will start winning back public confidence by ensuring the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement is competent but that notion was blown out of the water this week.

See this speech in context