Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I second the amendment. Cuirim céad fáilte roimh an Aire. Ba mhaith liomsa cuidiú leis an leasú atá molta ag mo chomhghleacaí, an Seanadóir Cullinane, mar tá daoine coipthe i ndáiríre faoin cur chuige a bhí ag an Rialtas, go raibh orainn agus ar an bhFreasúr an oiread brú a chur ar an Rialtas dul go dtí an chéim seo agus go bhfuil sé léir nach bhfuilimid sách fada go fóill.

It is a shame that the Government was dragged kicking screaming into this inquiry and that common sense will not prevail in terms of accepting our amendment because a number of issues remain to be resolved in regard to Siteserv. Yesterday Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation what he knew about the Siteserv deal. We have been asking the Minister to clarify what he knew about the issue for some time.

The IBRC inquiry had a cut-off date of 7 February 2013, which was the date of appointment of the special liquidator. Information passed to the Taoiseach by the Sinn Féin spokesperson for finance, Deputy Pearse Doherty, some of which was outlined in the Dáil, indicates that transactions, activities and decisions took place subsequent to that date. The special liquidator disposed of €21.7 billion in loans since that date. This dwarfs the amount during the period the commission has been asked to examine. Billions of euro of the people's money were transferred to private interests in a completely opaque manner. This is money which should have spent on hospitals, schools, houses and combating poverty. Senators from the Government parties have made eloquent speeches in this House on lone parents, housing and health. This money would have made a huge difference to the issues they raised. The sale of the Racing Postloans, which was criticised by a bidder as being less than transparent, and the sale of thousands of mortgages to unregulated vultures also fall within this timeframe. Contrary to the Government's claims, these are not included in the terms of reference of the commission and they could be subject to legal challenge or not investigated at all if the terms of reference are not amended. Our amendment proposes that the relevant period shall be from 12 January 2009 to 12 March 2015, inclusive, to cover all these transactions. The latter date was chosen because it is the date on which IBRC published its progress report.

I urge the Minister and Government party Senators to read our amendment and rethink their approach now rather than require us to return to the matter at some future date. This is not the first time we have lacked transparency in financial matters. NAMA was excluded from freedom of information provisions and its lack of transparency is regularly criticised in this House. That is, unfortunately, par for the course in the Department of Finance but it is not too late to change the culture in order that the public can get full disclosure through an independent and comprehensive inquiry into these issues. Tá súil againn go dtógfaidh an tAire an leasú atáimid ag moladh ar bord. Sílimid go bhfuil sé ar leas an phobail agus muna dtógann an tAire ar bord é, beidh orainn teacht chun cinn arís eile chun é a leasú amach anseo.