Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I remember all the talk, even during the conduct of those inquiries when the then Attorney General and the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform were going to do the devil and all in reforming and they did not reform any of it. We need reform because there will be occasions when a tribunal of inquiry will be appropriate again. What we are trying to do is to create another model. The Commissions of Investigation Act will allow for some forms of inquiry that could be conducted behind closed doors where that is appropriate and then produce a finding. For example, the Murphy report was a very good example of that. Most of the focus in today’s debate has been on a future banking inquiry, although as I stressed, this is an overarching Bill. What people want is an inquiry where people would simply be asked the questions everyone wants answered in a public forum under oath.

Senator Byrne is correct; I do not think there would be great reluctance on the part of many participants to attend, answer or to tell the truth. No more than people do not need a newspaper editor to come to conclusions for them, when people have the full evidence they can weigh up their own views on the issues. In a way, it is assistance. I do not wish to sound as if I am not in favour of further powers for the Oireachtas but it is an assistance if it is an inquiry that cannot find culpability because then it can be more probing and less restrictive in the way it operates because it simply wants to set out the truth and let people come to their own conclusions. I do not accept the political charge that because somebody says something on the Order of Business or during Taoiseach’s Questions that we are all disqualified. Otherwise, no parliamentary inquiry would operate in any jurisdiction. One could look at how robust the exchanges are in the Australian Parliament. They make what we say look very sheepish, if that is not to use an Australian phrase in and of itself. We are much more restrained than-----