Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise. I will say "we". It is the third person - the posh way of saying it - but I am including myself in it. We must be wary of that grandstanding because what the public wants at all times is fairness. The public does not want show trials or political investigations. The public wants to know what happened. For all the faults, failings and criticisms of tribunals of inquiry, and there are many, they did come to conclusions on many aspects. They reached conclusions on corruption that could not have been reached here and have not yet been reached in the criminal courts. There are things a tribunal can do. There is a Bill before the Oireachtas to reform tribunals and it might have been wiser to look at that for the banking inquiry and to look at changing the law on tribunals to reign in the costs because they were excessively high. We on this side of the House must take responsibility for that because they were not sufficiently reigned in. I am worried about that in terms of these inquiries.

While it is the case that the Oireachtas has the power to decide in respect of inquiries - the Minister set that out - and this is a significant decision by the Government, the reality is that the Government controls the Oireachtas. Let us not say that somehow an independent Oireachtas is going to make all these decisions. The Government controls the Oireachtas. That is the way it is, always has been and is likely to remain no matter who is in power. The idea that there is some independent body with independent thought making the decisions separate from the Executive is a nonsense. We should not be saying or repeating it because it is not true. The Oireachtas of the day will, 999 times out of 1,000, do what the Government of the day wants it to do.

The Bill provides for the inquire, record and report style of inquiry. That can already happen and has happened, which is fine. It provides for inquiries that are forward-looking and empowered to make findings of fact in the context of investigations relating to our legislative functions here and inquiries relating to the removal of certain office holders like the President or judges. This is very important and the Oireachtas has again fallen short when it is inquiring into office holders and Members of the Houses. It provides for making findings of fact for the purpose of holding the Government to account under Article 28.4. The major difficulty there relates to individuals. There is no difficulty with holding the Government to account but the problem arises when one is making findings of fact against individuals. Reading the text, I see that the Oireachtas can make findings of fact that directly impugn the good name of an office holder or former office holder. The Minister stated on the radio last week that this would not apply to people who are not Members of the Dáil. Certainly it is not my reading of it but I heard the Minister say on the radio last week that former Ministers who are not Members of the Dáil could not have findings of fact made against them. I think this is what the Minister said.