Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach will have to agree that the commission of investigation system in Ireland is broken and is in need of major reform. Investigations are never-ending vehicles that receive extension after extension and cost the taxpayer millions of euro. They produce reports that often end up on dusty shelves with very little consequences for those who are implicated in the reports. The commission of investigations system is often used by governments to kick issues into touch often for up to a decade and by then the Taoiseach or the relevant Minister has long since gone.

The Moriarty tribunal started in 1997 and took 14 years to publish its final report, costing €65 million. The NAMA commission has already cost nearly €4 million and the Siteserv commission the Taoiseach just mentioned was to produce its final report in 2015, was meant to cost €4 million and ended up costing €19 million. Is it not time that that dysfunction was brought to an end? We need to reform the system. I believe we need to have a permanent investigation commission with specific timeframes to make its judgments so that we can get justice and information fast.

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