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

I thank the Deputies for the issues raised. With respect to Deputy Boyd Barrett, we need a better model of inquiry. More important, existing agencies should be the principal mechanism for holding Government agencies and bodies and, generally, society to account and contemporaneously. One of the difficulties in looking back is that we use the prism of today to judge actions 30 or 40 years ago.

In respect of the financial issues, I agree very serious issues were raised, particularly in terms of the IBRC. It is seven years since that inquiry commenced. In regard to Deputy Bacik's point, the draft report has been completed. In July 2021, the commission issued a draft of its report, which runs to 1,280 pages, to all relevant parties and gave them until 22 October to provide submissions on it. Since then, the commission has received detailed submissions on the draft report, running to more than 1,600 pages, from 12 different parties. These submissions raise a number of complex matters which the commission is currently in the process of carefully considering along with some additional evidence, which it is also considering. The commission stated that once it has completed this review process, it will prepare a revised draft report for circulation to all relevant parties on or about 30 April 2022. It proposes to provide relevant parties with an eight week period, which will expire on 13 June 2022, to review the draft report and make observations. It will then take it from there.

In terms of the emergency accommodation issue and direct provision, Deputy Boyd Barrett mentioned Ukraine as well, which I think is a bit unfair.

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