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

In the first instance, the commission of inquiry is in itself a form of holding people to account. The background in Ireland is that we have a written Constitution. People have legal rights and there is the presumption of innocence and so forth, which creates a legal context, which it seems to me makes all forms of inquiry very difficult. I make that general point. Deputy Bacik is more versed in the law than most here. That is a fundamental problem we have. Going back over the years, sometimes we have managed fairly quick investigations, some of them even non statutory: for example, the Ferns inquiry into abuse in the diocese of Ferns, which I initiated. A very good senior counsel at the time, now a judge, George Birmingham, got through it in months, to such an extent that it was ready for a statutory inquiry. It happened much more quickly also because the church co-operated 100% and the new bishop who came in handed over all the documentation. I remember other inquiries took an age - five and six years. The commission of investigation model was brought in to speed up the process in comparison to the inquiries under the original tribunals of inquiry Act, because they were going on too long. There is a fundamental issue that the Oireachtas must return to at some stage and on which it must consult in respect of whether there are effective means to have inquiries that can be short, concise and get to the point in terms of finding out what happened and what actions should follow.

In this case, there are very clear recommendations as to where it should go. We have sent the report to those bodies. I am not of the view that the report will gather dust on a shelf because what is in the report is quite substantial. I do not want to prejudice anything that might happen, but considerable clarity has been brought to a lot of issues, in particular regarding taxation, people not being kept informed and so on. That is a matter for the Corporate Enforcement Authority but also Revenue and so on. They will not necessarily be coming back to me. They will now deal with the individuals concerned.

To be fair, it was the Opposition, of which I was a member at the time, that sought this inquiry from the Government of the day. We cannot accuse the Government of the day of politically shelving it. All the leaders met - Deputy Catherine Murphy will remember that - in the then Taoiseach, Enda Kenny's room. We then agreed to develop new legislation. This legislation is bespoke legislation, above and beyond the original commissions of investigation legislation because the judge had come back and said he needed additional powers as he faced potential legal challenges all along the way in respect of the progression of this report.

I believe we should go back to first principles. The existing investigatory and regulatory framework should be our first port of call in respect of investigating white-collar crime. I am speaking generally. My comments are not just in the context of Siteserv. The Garda must have stronger units. It is developing stronger teams in the area of fraud in conjunction with the Corporate Enforcement Authority. That needs to happen and is happening in terms of additional resources. Right across the board, all the various regulatory organisations should be far more proactive. What tends to happen is that the first port of call in the House is that we all just call for a commission. We are all guilty of that. It is the easiest thing to call for and to table a motion on. It can take seven years, which is too long. It is not satisfactory. This was previously examined by the Law Reform Commission in 2005. There was a report on public inquiries, including tribunals of inquiry.

It listed some advantages of a permanent inquiries office if we were to establish one. Over time, it stated, the staff would become experienced in investigations and would be paid salaries rather than a daily rate, resulting in savings. The office would have easy access to precedents and guidance on procedural issues and would provide a one-stop shop for those seeking information. However, it also listed disadvantages, stating:

Although a number of public inquiries may be in existence at present, there is no guarantee that there will be a need for similar bodies in the future ... [P]ublic inquiries ... are ad hocbodies [by their nature] ... and their structure and personnel should reflect this.

Certain situations demand certain types of inquiries. Of course, I have no doubt that if there was a permanent office of inquiries, it would be inundated in a short time by this House. That is not to make any judgments but that would happen. Everyone would want to make inquires. We would be in a kind of a Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, situation. I get the sense GSOC has hundreds of inquiries to go through and people do not seem to get satisfaction in terms of timely responses.

I am sorry for going on a bit there, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, but I was trying to get to the nub of what the Deputies were asking about.

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