Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, to the House. I support this commission of investigation being established but I have one proviso. It is due to produce an interim report in three months time. I do not want someone to come back saying that they need a further deferral. The critical point is that we need to have an interim report from the judge and the commission within three months. If the judge has a difficulty with resources, he should tell the Government now, not a day before the three months are up. This is about public trust.

The Committee of Public Accounts produced the report and I believe an issue was missed in all of the discussion. The Comptroller and Auditor General had an issue with the procedure, which he queried as he did the corporate governance. That was the key to the report of the Committee of Public Accounts. That was rarely reported in the media, yet that was the key, and it never got the level of probity required. It was all about the value. The value is extremely important to the taxpayer, but it is about the procedure.

I was in the other House the night the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, was set up. I put through that legislation for Fine Gael. NAMA was set up for specific reasons, and they have been lost. NAMA was set up because the banks, in terms of their balance sheets, were effectively bankrupt. The taxpayer stepped in and effectively put more than €40 billion of taxpayers' money into NAMA. They took it on the hook.

In terms of what was to spring from NAMA, it was supposed to take all the difficult development loans off the banks' balance sheets and allow credit to flow. That took a long time to happen. Getting the money back was to be a long-term project, not a short-term one. It was not supposed to be an asset disposal agency only. It was supposed to have a major social dividend. It has delivered on some of that, but it has not delivered on other aspects. We are where we are, and we look at the body of work that has been done by the Committee of Public Accounts. I know the Comptroller and Auditor General. I was a member of the Committee of Public Accounts for many years. It was about the procedures. The question is why the procedures were remiss. There is also the matter of how much it would cost the taxpayer. Those are the questions the ordinary person is asking.

I want to bring this full circle. In the judgment delivered today in the case of Sean FitzPatrick in the Circuit Court, the jury was directed by the judge to give a not guilty verdict. The ordinary person is looking at that and, once again, they are being told by the judge that the reason for this was procedural. The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement did not do its job properly. I am as mad as hell about that. I was thinking about it outside the perspective of a politician. How in the name of God did this happen? Some €30 billion of taxpayers' money has gone down a drain in Anglo. It is costing the ordinary taxpayer over €6,000 each. We now have a situation where there have been two trials. This current trial lasted 126 days. It will cost the taxpayer €3 million, apart from what it cost in terms of the investigation by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. There must be accountability. How did this cock-up happen? Why are we hearing people say that files were shredded? How do we find that the witness statements were taken incorrectly?

I remember when the issue came to hand. In layman's terms what happened was that two financial institutions, Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society, had different year ends. Anglo's year end was 30 September. That of Irish Nationwide was either November or December. Effectively, a director's loan was refinanced in a bed and breakfast transaction out of Anglo into Irish Nationwide for a two-week period, so it never appeared on Anglo's balance sheet. It was transferred back into Anglo within two weeks, so it never appeared on Irish Nationwide's balance sheet at year end. Those are the facts. It was €100 million at the end. It only came to light because at year end in September 2008, the director's loan balance had gone up sky high and questions were asked about that.

The ordinary person looking into this is asking what happened. They want to know why they are picking up the paper and reading that a judge, having spent €3 million of our money carrying out an investigation in the courts on legal fees, and I cannot imagine what was spent by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, stated that there was bias in the way the investigation was carried out.The bottom line is that there is €30 billion of taxpayer's money on the hook for Anglo Irish Bank. The promissory note was great as it kicked debt off into the future, but my children and those of the ordinary man on the street will end up paying for it. The news came on the day when we were focused on the crisis in Manchester, which was absolutely horrific, given the loss of human lives. What we are discussing did not involve the loss of human lives directly, but how many people have come to the offices of public representatives who were being hounded by the banks have lost their homes and businesses? They are looking at what has happened and saying the organs of State did not work in their interests and that effectively an institution set up to look at white collar crime, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, did not do its job properly. People will lose trust in the legal mechanisms of the State as a result. There will be a delayed reaction because the judge made the announcement on the day we were focused on the tragic loss of life caused by a murderer at an event in Manchester.

People have to be held accountable. The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement has to be held accountable for this major cock up at taxpayer's expense. We must become serious in tackling white collar crime. Regardless of whether Mr. FitzPatrick was guilty, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement should have done its job properly. This has been ongoing since 2012. After five years, it is not good enough. I am incensed and outraged that there has been such a cock up when I see what people have had to go through since 2007. The arms of the law are seen as not having carried out their job. If in the circumstances Mr. FitzPatrick had been found guilty or not guilty, so be it, but the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement should have carried out its job properly. This is not rocket science; it is about preparing a case in the normal way. We must find out what happened in the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the people must be held accountable.