Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome today's debate on the IBRC Commission of Investigation report. It is a 1,500 page report but I am not going to pretend I have read it. I know others have done so but I certainly have not read it. I have read summary reports of it and it has been well documented in recent days. It goes into great detail on the Siteserv transaction, making extensive findings of fact. The Government accepts the findings of the commission and believes the report shines a light on unacceptable practices by certain parties during the course of the transaction. Amongst its findings, the commission determined that the IBRC made its decision to approve the sale of the Siteserv group in good faith but based on misleading and incomplete information provided to it by the Siteserv company itself. It also found that there was a "below the surface" process whereby certain events occurred in the course of the Siteserv sale process without the knowledge of the bank. This "below the surface" process meant that steps were taken and decisions made in the course of the Siteserv sale process in a manner that was manifestly improper and which undermined the integrity of the overall sale process. The commission also determined that it can be concluded that the Siteserv transaction was, from the perspective of the bank, so tainted by impropriety and wrongdoing that the transaction was not commercially sound. It concluded that the bank could have recovered up to €8.7 million more than the €44.3 million it agreed to accept in the sale.

Just before Deputy Calleary leaves the Chamber I want to join others in congratulating him. I am delighted to see him on the front benches of the House again, deservedly serving as a Minister for State. It is a proud day for his family and for County Mayo.

I will now make a few more general points about this commission of investigation. Tribunals of investigation are hugely important in terms of providing transparency, identifying corruption where it has happened and uncovering how it has manifested itself but the length of time it has taken for this report to be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas is absolutely astounding. The inquiry was set up ten years ago. I read in an article in January of this year that €80 million was spent on three tribunals over the past decade. I am sure there have been more but the three in question are the IBRC investigation, the Moriarty Tribunal which ran for an incredibly long time and investigation into the NAMA Project Eagle loan book sale. Those three investigations together had a cumulative cost of €80 million. They carried out very important work but the expenditure on that work needs to be scrutinised, as does the length of time it takes to report back. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which deals with an inordinate amount of criminal law cases each year operates on a very small budget. It does not have a hugely resourced department behind it but it is able to get cases through the courts system at all levels every day of the week. It concerns me that, while we are right as a body politic to extract the truth and deliver transparency on behalf of the taxpayers and citizens of our land, it takes an inordinate amount of time for these tribunals, inquiries and investigations to conclude their work.

All of these tribunals have, I hope, cleaned up the body politic in terms of how the State, big business, banks and everyone does their business. One of the upshots of all of this is that there is an incredible level of scrutiny of politicians and we put ourselves forward for all of that. However, I would like to home in on an issue that some Deputies, Senators and councillors would have mentioned to Government figures in the past, which is the idea of politically exposed personnel. Any Member of this House, any Member of Seanad Éireann or any member of a local authority is considered to be politically exposed from a banking and financial point of view. We all know what that means in this House but for the record, it means that in the eyes of our banking system, there is a potential conflict of interest in terms of holding public office with an elected mandate and transacting with one's local financial institution, be it a bank, credit union or whatever. However, it is not just applied to the individual who has chosen the elected way of life and who has a mandate from the people. The politically exposed categorisation extends to family members to such an extent that if the 19 or 20 year old son or daughter of a Member of this House and or of a local councillor tries to raise a loan to go to college or to buy their first car, a clapped-out Ford Fiesta, he or she is deemed to be politically exposed and it can take eight months to get the loan processed. It is wrong. There have been people who have come through this House and abused their position. Some of them have been found out and have been all over our national press and some of them have not been found out. However, most people, and I say this with respect to people of all colours and creeds, who have been elected and who have come through the doors of the Chamber to stand up for their communities, counties and constituencies do it for the very best reasons, not for corruption and not for ill-gotten gains. The idea of being politically exposed is wrong. The political exposure, the transparency here is being recorded, being all over the press, having a record of everything we say and do. We have the offices of SIPO just down the street. This is where the accountability lies but I cannot fathom why the son, daughter, niece or nephew of a county councillor in west Clare, Roscommon, Mayo or Dublin is considered to be politically exposed and cannot go off and raise a simple, basic loan at the start of the 2022-23 academic year. It is wrong. It is bonkers.

This did not come in under this Government or the previous one. I think it came in about nine or ten years ago. It was a major reaction to tribunals, corruption and people abusing their positions but somebody should scream that this is madness and stop it, or at least row back on it a bit. Certainly, we need accountability and I am sure there is more we need to do in that regard. Maybe the fobbing in system needs to be looked at. Maybe there is lots of stuff we need to do here. I heard the Ceann Comhairle on the radio yesterday speaking about how Parliament can improve but good Lord, one would want to be living like an altar boy, leading a life of absolute purity with white smoke coming from the chimney of one's house to have any chance of sitting in a seat here and representing one's constituency. Someone needs to look at the politically exposed issue. By all means, put us under the lens but not our sons, daughters, in-laws, nieces and nephews. I have not even told my in-laws that they are politically exposed but the bank will tell them when they go down and that is wrong. That is absolutely wrong. Someone needs to stop the madness.

See this speech in context