Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I oppose the motion. It is the wrong time to carry out this inquiry and Members of the Oireachtas are the wrong people to do it. It is the wrong time because it is too late. Putting elected representatives of the people into the difficult and dubious task of trying to answer some very complex questions to satisfy people's legitimate and understandable outrage about everything that went on regarding the banking crisis and the political, economic, social, cultural, financial and behavioural collapse that occurred on foot of it is too much for the Oireachtas to take on.

Reference has been made to the constitutional referendum on tribunals of inquiry and there have been subdued tones of regret from speakers suggesting it is a pity the referendum did not pass. Because it did not pass, we are where we are and are doing the best we can within the limited scope of that which is constitutionally permissible. I campaigned against the referendum because Deputies and Senators are not the right people to carry out inquiries into the conduct of other people which might lead to findings that are critical of those people's reputations. The reasons for which I opposed the referendum are substantially the same as the reasons for which I think the banking inquiry is a complete nonsense, when one strips it down, namely, that the majority of politicians are unable to resist the tendency to partisanship and making statements that will get them attention in the media. This is not because politicians are bad people. We suffer from these tendencies because we depend to some extent on the oxygen of publicity to secure our reputations in the eyes of voters. In these circumstances, it is absolutely wrong to entrust to elected Deputies and Senators the task of conducting inquiries of a serious kind, even if these inquiries come short of making findings adverse to other people's reputations.

In no sense do I disparage the tremendous abilities of some of the people who will constitute the inquiry team. There is no finer contributor in the Oireachtas than our colleague from the independent university benches, Senator Barrett. Although he will be a very fine and refined thinker on the inquiry, he could be so without being an elected Member of the Oireachtas. Although there are others like him who could be just as qualified and able to participate in such an inquiry, it is not the fact that they are elected Members that makes them peculiarly fit for the task.

If there is an investigation Members of the Oireachtas could take on, it might be to consider what failures in the legislative process or failures to legislate contributed to the systemic banking crisis and the political, economic, social, cultural and financial collapse that took place on foot of it. That would be an appropriate task for Members of the Oireachtas to take on because it relates to their duties as legislators and the future performance by legislators of their duties. Instead of taking our cue from people in the referendum, which was to say we should stay away from inquiring into people's behaviours or weighty matters of this kind, we have sought to give a form of bread and circuses to Members of the Oireachtas, to give them some other task to do instead of strengthening the tasks they ought to have.

Through political reform, we should work at strengthening the task of scrutinising legislation, establishing and identifying policy initiatives and bringing them forward through legislation. That is the road we should be travelling and not this one, which, as Senator O'Brien says, will not only fail to satisfy the people, but will end up being a distraction from the work Deputies and Senators ought to be doing.