Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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1. To ask the Taoiseach the number, and cost, of ongoing commissions and investigations under the remit of his Department. [22558/23]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The only ongoing commission of investigation for which I am the specified Minister is the National Asset Management Agency Commission of Investigation. As with all such commissions, it is fully independent in its work. The NAMA commission was established in June 2017, following consultations with Oireachtas parties, to investigate the sale by NAMA of its Northern Ireland portfolio, known as Project Eagle.

Its original deadline for reporting was 31 June 2018, but following several requests from the commission and consultation with Oireachtas parties, its timeframe for reporting has been extended. Most recently, in February 2023, I granted a further request for an extension, this time until the end of October 2023. From the time of its establishment to 16 May 2023, the commission has cost approximately €5.5 million excluding third-party legal costs incurred but not yet paid and which will be considered by the commission at the end of its investigation.

I take this opportunity to refer to the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation Commission of Investigation, for which I was also the specified Minister until last week when I received its final report, which went to Government today. The IBRC Commission of Investigation was established in June 2015, following consultation with Oireachtas parties, to investigate certain transactions, activities and management decisions at the IBRC, beginning with the Siteserv transaction.

The commission’s original deadline for reporting was 31 December 2015 but following requests from the commission, and after consultation with parties, its timeframe for reporting was extended on multiple occasions. The commission’s report on the Siteserv transaction was received in July 2022 and it was subsequently published and debated in both the Dáil and Seanad.

In October 2022, the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, accepted the commission’s recommendation that it would serve no useful purpose to investigate the remaining 37 transactions covered by its terms of reference. The commission’s substantive work was complete at that stage and on 25 May 2023, it submitted its final report to me, which deals with the costs of the commission as well as its reflections on, and suggestions for, reform of commissions of investigation generally.

The Government has now agreed that the final report will be published and laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. It has also agreed that the Minister for Justice, in consultation with the Oireachtas as appropriate, will consider the suggestions made by the commission in its final report for reform of the commission of investigation process.

While the final cost of the commission is currently being finalised, we expect it will be in the region of €19 million, including the cost of third-party legal cost claims that were considered by the commission in respect of witnesses who appeared before it. This figure does not include the cost of any further legal challenges that might arise. The commission was dissolved on 25 May 2023 upon submission of its final report in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions in the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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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.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Committee Stage of the mother and baby redress scheme legislation continues in the Seanad this afternoon and will move to Final Stage in the coming weeks. There is no commitment from the religious orders as to their contribution to that redress scheme. Unfortunately, the Government has still not resolved shortfalls in the legislation regarding children who were boarded out and children who were in these institutions for less than six months.

This is despite acknowledgment in the report of the interdepartmental group that the commission of investigation found that children who were boarded out in some cases experienced the very worst of abuse. As the Taoiseach knows, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission also advised the group that the six-month timeframe has no rationale and no reasonable link to the harm suffered by survivors in the Irish context. The appointment of former trade union leader Sheila Noonan as the Government's negotiator is welcome, although I have to echo the observation of activist Claire McGettrick regarding the differing lens through which the Government views the religious orders and victims. She wrote:

Good the Minister is pushing the religious orders to contribute to redress. But it's instructive to note the difference in approach re religious orders vs affected people: Negotiations for the orders.

'We know what's best' for affected people.

There is still time for the Government to resolve the two key outstanding issues with this scheme. I hope the Taoiseach will intervene, even at this very late stage.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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Is any investigation planned or proposed into the immigrant investor programme? This was otherwise known as the "golden passport" scheme. It closed to new applicants on 15 February this year. Quite a number of concerns have been raised about how it operated, to whom it applied and so on. It was often referred to, as I said, as a golden passport or a passport for investors. What brought about its closure? Was there an investigation, the results of which gave rise to the decision to close the scheme? Is there any plan to investigate the discrepancy in treatment between those who sought citizenship under that programme and the applications for citizenship and family reunification from others? I am thinking in particular of Syrians here in Ireland. I have been contacted by Syrians in Ireland who have close family members in Lebanon. They tell me there is now a real concern about the mass deportation of Syrian refugees back to Syria by the Lebanese armed forces, yet Syrians in Ireland, who are here legally and are seeking to have their relatives join them from Lebanon rather than being returned to Syria and to the brutal regime of Assad, are not getting any success in their pleas for exceptional cases for their family members to be allowed come to Ireland from Lebanon instead. I would like to know the position on the immigrant investor programme but also whether the State can see fit to ensure humanitarian visas be granted, particularly to those Syrian family members who are seeking to come and join families here in Ireland and who are currently facing the awful prospect of being repatriated to the brutal Syrian regime of Assad.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I received a reply to a parliamentary question from the Minister for Justice stating that the report into the tragic and untimely death of Shane O'Farrell, commissioned with the co-operation of Judge Gerard Haughton, was presented on 1 June 2022. In a couple of days, that will have been a year ago. After 12 years of Lucia O'Farrell and her family fighting like tigers to have this report published and have a full public inquiry established, and after this Dáil and the Seanad voting in favour of same, out of respect for the O'Farrell family, is it not time that the Government publish the report, discuss the conclusions reached by Judge Haughton and then, on the back of that, open up a full public inquiry? This has gone on too long. This is terribly tragic and sad. We have all witnessed how much it has impacted on the O'Farrell family. A year after the Minister receiving it, the report is still not published. That is not on. I would like the Taoiseach to respond to that.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputies for their questions. Deputy Tóibín raised the difficulties we have had with so many commissions of investigation taking so long and costing so much. I often meet people who request a commission of investigation into some matter or other. I am often very upfront with them and I say it will take years and could cost many millions of euro and they might not be happy with the findings. They do not always work out very well. Some have worked out well and some have not. There are lots of different ways to carry out investigations. Commissions of investigation are one way while tribunals, Garda investigations and GSOC investigations are others. Of course, the new Corporate Enforcement Authority, which I established last year as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, now has much stronger powers to investigate allegations of commercial malpractice or fraud. That is probably the body that should be used in the future for investigations that relate to commercial matters or commercial transactions. Of course, the Garda Economic Crime Bureau has a role in that too. One of the suggestions put forward in the IBRC report is that we have a standing commission of inquiry, which would mean we would not have to set one up each time. There are pros and cons to doing that as well. That needs to be thought through and fleshed out.

Regarding the Haughton report, as far as I am aware that is with the Minister for Justice. He has been very keen to publish it. We want to publish it as soon as possible but there has been engagement with the family about it. If they are happy for it to be published, I do not see any reason why it should not be but I have not been involved in that personally. Judge Haughton did a very detailed report. I would ask people to read his conclusions before calling for the next step to be taken because his conclusions in that regard are very clear.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Then publish it.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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On the immigrant investor programme, to be very clear, it does not involve passports or citizenship whatsoever. It never did. The programme involves a residency permit for a number of years if somebody makes a major investment in the State. Nothing specifically came up that was untoward about it. However, the numbers availing of it are much larger than we expected. Almost all came from the one country and that raised concerns. That is why we suspended it. Let us not forget that it brought millions of euro into sports clubs, community centres and economic programmes all around the country. It was not a bad scheme in itself but we suspended it for those reasons. It is not comparable in any way with passports or citizenship or the normal immigration system. It was a permit in return for investment.

Regarding the mother and baby institutions, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, with the agreement of the Government, has appointed Sheila Noonan to engage with religious orders on their making a contribution. They are under no legal obligation to do so and it is unlikely that if we pursued them in the courts, we would be able to secure anything from them through that mechanism. However, we do think they have a moral obligation to make a contribution whether it is in the form of land or moneys. That is what we are seeking, that is what Ms Noonan is seeking and that has been done in the past in relation to other abuse.

As I understand it, the children boarded out who were in mother and baby homes are included and those who were not in mother and baby homes are not. It is a mother and baby homes or institutions scheme. We are not proposing any further changes to the scheme at this stage. We are keen to get it up and running and we want that to happen as soon as possible.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The six-month rule is pertinent here.