Tom Shehan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I must agree with Senator Byrne. The referendum of which all sides were in favour was rejected by the people but, in hindsight, the people would probably prefer if they had not rejected it at the time. I commend the Minister because he has spent a considerable amount of time on this Bill, which structures a framework for the holding of inquiries. Much time has been spent on this and the Minister must be commended for his efforts.

The Bill establishes a comprehensive statutory framework for the Houses of the Oireachtas to conduct inquiries within the current constitutional framework. It represents a very important step in the process of clarifying the role of the Houses of the Oireachtas in securing accountability through investigations into matters of significant public importance. There is a broad scope under the Constitution for the Oireachtas to carry out legitimate inquiries into matters of public importance. I am confident the Bill contains explicit requirements to observe fair procedures and contains provisions in respect of the conduct of Members to avoid any perception of bias.

To that end, I believe the chairman will be most important for any inquiries that will be carried out. I suggest that the chairperson's role should not be permanent, regardless of who the chairperson might be.

For instance, in the banking inquiry it is important that the person would have experience and a background in the matter, and that it would be carried out with due process.

The Bill fully respects the Supreme Court judgment in the Abbeylara case. It is underpinned by extensive legal advice from the Office of the Attorney General and external counsel and is framed to ensure that it fully meets current constitutional requirements, including the right to fair procedures. The Bill contains explicit provisions for full access to the courts. This is overarching legislation which will structure how inquiries are to be conducted by this House and by the other House in the future, including inquiries in regard to the impeachment of judges, the impeachment of the President, should it ever arise, inquiries into legislation and on the gathering and presenting of facts.

I am confident that this legislation will allow for a banking inquiry to be held in public, to lay out all the facts of what happened here in relation to the banking scandal in the past five years. I advocate the need for an effective and legally robust parliamentary banking inquiry into the events that occurred on the night of the bank guarantee and the systems failures that led to our current fiscal crisis, a fiscal crisis that continues to impact on households throughout the country. We continue to pick up the pieces of the previous mismanagement of our economic affairs. The people demand answers as to what happened and we, as legislators, must do everything in our power to ensure that this banking inquiry happens. This Bill will facilitate such an inquiry provided the terms of reference of the inquiry are correctly framed and I believe that will happen. That said, this Bill is about more than a banking inquiry.

The primary purpose of this legislation is to create a comprehensive legal framework which is of general application for any future inquiry. Parliamentary inquiries under this legislation can be cost effective, efficient and resilient to any legal challenge, provided they have focused terms of reference and comply strictly with fair procedures. The Bill provides all of the constitutional safeguards to protect the rights of individuals consistent with the outcome of the referendum on Oireachtas inquiries. This legislation is essential to conducting a parliamentary banking inquiry and I welcome the Bill, and the Minister's efforts on same.

Having read through the Bill, there are one or two queries I want the Minister to address. He dealt comprehensively with costs. As a member of the Commission - I do not want to get into any trouble here - the Minister would be well aware of the large fees sought from the Oireachtas commission following a previous inquiry and the somewhat lesser figure, which was still exorbitant which was paid to the legal team in question. I urge him, in as effective a manner as possible, to ensure that does not happen again but that the fees would be laid out prior to witnesses appearing before the commission. What happens in the case of non-cooperative witnesses? My learned friend on the other side will have spent time in courthouses, thankfully I have not. From watching relevant television viewing, if people take the fifth amendment and refuse to answer direct questions, can the Minister ensure they are dealt with in the Bill? Will the State agree to pay the legal fees of witness who are non-cooperative? What will happen if there is a P. Flynn moment at one of these investigations, whereby a witness divulges information that heretofore had not been in the public domain and it is of an extensive nature that it may lead to a court case? Are safeguards provided for that eventuality in the legislation?