Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

1. To ask the Taoiseach his views on the report on the transaction in relation to a company (details supplied) and the principles and policies within a corporation on interest rates published by his Department. [44838/22]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

2. To ask the Taoiseach his views on the report on the transaction in relation to a company (details supplied) and the principles and policies within a corporation on interest rates published by his Department. [44840/22]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

3. To ask the Taoiseach the actions that he will take following the publication of the report of the IBRC Commission of Investigation. [45436/22]

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

4. To ask the Taoiseach the actions that he will take following the publication of the report of the IBRC Commission of Investigation. [49725/22]

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

5. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the status of the IBRC Commission of Investigation. [49898/22]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I propose to take questions Nos. 1 to 5, inclusive, together.

My Department received the report of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC, commission of investigation on the Siteserv transaction on 29 July 2022. I arranged for it to be published and laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas on 7 September 2022, following consultation with the Attorney General.

The commission's report is more than 1,500 pages long and goes through all aspects of the Siteserv transaction in an extraordinary level of detail as well as making extensive findings of fact. The report shines a light on unacceptable practices by certain parties during the course of the transaction and the Government noted its findings with considerable concern.

Among the many findings made by the commission in its report, it determined that it could be concluded that the Bank made its decision to approve the sale of Siteserv in good faith, but based on misleading and incomplete information provided to it by the company. 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.

The commission also found that the procedures and controls that were operated by IBRC at the relevant relating to the Siteserv transaction were fit for purpose. It also found there is no evidence that any unusual trading in Siteserv shares occurred. The commission also established the approach taken by the IBRC concerning the setting of interest rates for individual loans and how those decisions were reached, and made no adverse findings.

The commission recommended that the report be brought to the attention of relevant authorities concerning a number of taxation, company law and bankruptcy issues. Accordingly, as per the commission's recommendations and on foot of advice from the Attorney General, I have brought the report to the attention of the Revenue Commissioners, the special liquidators of the IBRC, the Corporate Enforcement Authority, the Central Bank and the official assignee in a bankruptcy case. These bodies are now responsible for conducting any appropriate investigations on foot of the report.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I note that the Taoiseach said in the past that the report was worthwhile. I agree insofar as it has shone a light on how things really work, how the business elite can take themselves off to a Swiss resort for a bootcamp and then not discuss what they really went away to discuss. Seven years later and having spent millions of euro of public money, we end up with a report that states that this was not a solid or sound transaction.

There are 37 additional transactions by IBRC with a net loss more than €10 million each to the State. The question is: what will happen now? I do not believe that anyone would want to see another seven years per investigation with more millions of euro per investigation. The Taoiseach said he has referred this to the Revenue Commissioners, the Central Bank, etc. Is it not high time that the State found a process by which to investigate alleged inappropriate carry-on with corporate dealings or the potential of white-collar crime? Is the Garda not interested this? Is corporate enforcement not the first place we should be going to? Can the DPP look at it? Rather than spending years and millions of euro on investigations of something which obviously stinks, can we not go and use the system of justice that actually exists to investigate particularly the 37 additional transactions which should be investigated?

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The findings of the IBRC Commission of Investigation report lift a veil on the reckless and elitist culture that infected certain echelons of Irish business and high finance during the Celtic tiger years. As we know, the commission is still preparing a report with its recommendations on the investigation of the other 37 transactions it has considered as part of its work.

Does the Taoiseach expect that the commission's report on these transactions will be submitted by the end of this month? How soon after that can we expect the Government to decide on the future of the commission itself, as it has also indicated there were insurmountable difficulties in progressing the investigation into these transactions. How does the Government intend to proceed? The total cost of the investigation has yet to be finalised, but we know it will be millions of euro. What consideration has the Taoiseach given to a more timely and less expensive mechanism by which such matters can be addressed? Given that the report as published has now been passed to the Revenue Commissioners, the special liquidators of the IBRC, the Corporate Enforcement Authority, the Central Bank and the official assignee in the bankruptcy case for further investigations, obvious questions are being asked as to who, if anybody, is going to be held accountable for what has transpired.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

It was indeed a very substantial document. On reading it, enormous detail is evident. What does the Taoiseach expect from the various entities to which he refers? Does he expect Revenue, the Corporate Enforcement Authority or the special liquidator of IBRC to come back to him? Is there a response? It would be obscene if those who got bonuses and who so tainted the process were permitted to keep them. Is that something the special liquidator is looking at in regard to IBRC?

There is also another aspect I wish to raise, namely, the leaked document from the official in Davy, who dealt with this case - Mr. Carville, now works as a senior official in the Department of Finance. Does the Taoiseach have a comment to make on that, because it does not seem to be something we can just gloss over?

Does the Corporate Enforcement Authority have the ability and staff to do the job? It was to be set up in January of this year and there were to be 16 gardaí, but there are still only seven gardaí assigned to it, although it deals with some very important cases and gardaí are required to be part of the process. Does the Taoiseach consider the authority to have sufficient staff to be able to handle the kind of work that is required to be done when issues such as this are referred to it?

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

During the debate on the IBRC commission report on Siteserv the Taoiseach indicated that the commission was due to submit a report before the end of October on the other 37 transactions. Could he update us on that?

As my colleague, Deputy Nash, pointed out during Dáil statements in September, there is a broader issue here where investigations under the Commissions of Investigations Act cannot serve a useful purpose if they cannot be completed within a reasonable timeframe and arrive at the truth in an effective and expeditious manner. Given that the evidence they gather is not admissible in similar criminal proceedings, they were supposed to be effective, efficient truth-finding mechanisms. Also, given how long the report has taken on just this one aspect, reading the report could be said to be like examining a long-buried time capsule with a story from long ago. If it is taking too long to get to the truth, and if we cannot use the commissions of investigation in an expeditious manner then we must ask if there is a case for a different sort of process to uncover or investigate the sort of issues the commission on Siteserv was set up to do. There is a genuine public concern about the length of time taken and the difficulty of getting to the truth through this mechanism, which we must recall was supposed to be an effective, efficient and expeditious version of the previous tribunals of inquiry mechanism. What is the preferred mechanism for such investigations in future?

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Who is going to be held to account for what happened in the sale of Siteserv? Most people feel at this stage that this report is going to end up on a dusty shelf somewhere and that nothing is going to happen when it comes to the actions that were not taken in regard to the sale of Siteserv. There is a major frustration out there that this particular crisis was politically shelved by a long-term commission of inquiry so that the heat was taken out of it at a time where it was causing a major challenge to the Government of the day, and that now nobody is going to be held to account.

My view is that the case should be with the Garda. There needs to be a situation where people are held to account for the actions that they have taken. What happened in Siteserv was extraordinary. There was a write-down of €119 million, much of which came from the pockets of taxpayers and citizens. Siteserv gave €5 million to shareholders at the time of the write-down, which was extraordinary. Arthur Cox acted for the two sides of the same transaction, which was also extraordinary. The job was to maximise the number of bidders to get the most for the taxpayer from the sale, yet the commission of inquiry shows that is not what happened. The number of bidders was minimised.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The key question is who will be held to account.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | 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.