Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I look forward to reading the full response that will be placed on the record. I am really disappointed with the response the Minister read out because this issue is not being dealt with as urgently as necessary. The questions over the current agency are very worrying. I refer to the botched Seán FitzPatrick investigation, the total absence of prosecutions and convictions for two years, the handing back of funding and the lack of staff in the agency.

Last week at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Business, Enterprise and Innovation, there was a vote against my proposal to invite the director in to answer questions. Legal worries were cited in the response to our invitation. As the record will show, clear guidelines could have been laid down to prevent any discussion of Anglo Irish Bank. Unrelated questions on why the ODCE is failing in its mandate could have been asked at a meeting of the committee. The ODCE has not been before a committee in the Oireachtas for a full eight years. The report compiled about the botched Seán FitzPatrick trial is secret. How are we supposed to find out what is going on in the ODCE? It is crazy. The tracker mortgage scandal highlights continued total disregard for corporate law. We learned from the finance committee yesterday that KBC Bank is still overcharging nearly 2,500 customers on tracker mortgages. That is no wonder because investigations into, and prosecutions of, white-collar crime in this country are a joke.

See this speech in context