Joe O'Toole (Independent)

What are we doing? Are the people on these committees clear about what they are doing? They are walking into trouble. There must be a clear understanding about these issues. The regulation committee should be doing the tedious, painstaking work of examining auditing and governance structures, auditing stress tests, reporting procedures and responsibilities, and ethics arising from accountancy and auditing. That must be done. I sat on the compellability committee chaired by former Deputy Des O'Malley more than ten years ago and we examined many of these matters at the time. We lost in the Supreme Court on the issue.

We must be absolutely careful how we do this. The Oireachtas is not a court of law. The Constitution clearly separates the roles of politicians and the courts and let us acknowledge that. The committee has work to do. It can certainly investigate what took place in Anglo Irish Bank and the other banks in terms of how this came to be and how the head of treasury and the head of credit had the discretion to move €7 billion without bothering to talk to the chief executive officer, the chairman or the board. Many questions can be asked but the committee cannot delve into the affairs of individuals who might be subject to criminal proceedings down the line. We should be very careful about doing that.

I seek a debate on this issue, in which we can discuss what can and cannot be done. It is pointless to run in front of the media and think one can just call for it and it will be done. That is not what committees are for. They were never there to replace the courts, and God forbid we would ever go down that road.

As Senator Fitzgerald said, we are seeing a society that is disintegrating before our eyes with anger at the Government. After 15 years with the best record of industrial peace in any European country and the best record for growing productivity, the spirit of partnership in the workplace is about to be shattered. Clearly, we are facing industrial unrest. People might think they can face this down but there is no facing it down. It will simply grow, as will the anger. The Government will be atomised in the local elections the way things are going at present. That is not good for anyone; it is not the way society should go.

There are issues to be dealt with. We could consider a situation whereby the lowest categories of people being forced to pay a pension levy would be taken out of it and instead of charging 9.9% on the highest categories, we could reallocate it as 6% for extra pension and 3.9% as an additional income levy and apply it across the board on anybody earning more than €90,000 in the public or private sectors. That is something the unions would have to consider seriously, it would give the Government its money, would not have a downside and would result in a society moving forward together. There are issues but there are always solutions.