Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There were two items there. I will take up the issue of the childcare question. I will ask the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, to engage with the Deputy on that and I will follow up with the Minister.

I cannot agree to any form of new inquiry today. I will make the general point that, ultimately, we have to get to a position where our existing mechanisms are ones in which we trust and whereby we say it is their duty to investigate. We can see with commissions of investigation how, even after three or four years of investigations, people are not necessarily satisfied with their outcomes, and that creates all sorts of challenges for our entire system of inquiry and investigation in regard to GSOC, commissions of investigation, tribunals of inquiry and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. We are now setting up a new mechanism regarding impropriety on the part of finance officials. When we create these institutions that are at arm's length and independent, we have to allow them to do their work. That is the point I am making. It is something we will have to develop but I will engage with the Deputies.

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