Alex White (Labour)

He is still around and will still feature in all of this as our former Taoiseach. While I do not want to personalise the issue, I raise his involvement for one reason only, that he himself said this recently when asked about his role in what had occurred:

'Even the self-criticisms in it I accept also, which was mainly the tax incentives. We probably should have closed those down a good bit earlier, but there were always fierce pressures, there was endless pressures to keep them. There was endless pressures to extend them.'

He said the pressure had come from developers, owners of sites, areas that didn't have the developments, community councils, politicians and civic society.

That is a very significant statement by the former Taoiseach, one that requires further analysis, scrutiny and debate. I would have thought that this exercise would occur at the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service, although I may be naive in thinking that. I also thought that all the people mentioned, including the current Taoiseach, had said they would be happy to go before the committee. However, the terms of reference do not suggest that will be the nature of the inquiry at the committee. Will the Minister of State comment on this?

I accept there is a wider political environment. It is a matter for political parties and politicians to analyse the issues involved as they see fit and bring forward proposals, analysis, attack lines and so on. However, there is also a role for a committee of the Oireachtas to examine policy making, policy decisions and the pressures to which the former Taoiseach referred. I did not say it; he did.