Labour slams decision to scrap inspectors

COSTLY tribunals of inquiry are the only way important matters of public interest can be publicly investigated because the Government has abandoned the only viable alternative, Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte has warned.

Parliamentary inspectors were to be given wide-ranging powers to investigate matters of public importance for Dáil committees. However legislation to put the new inspectors on a statutory footing was ditched by Finance Minister Charlie McCreevey late last week.

The decision to scrap the draft legislation and abandon plans for parliamentary inspectors was last night criticised by Deputy Rabbitte who called the move a broken promise which showed the Government's fear of parliamentary reform.

"There was all-party agreement on this issue. The idea was accepted by the Government as part of a parliamentary reform package and as the Minister has acknowledged work had commenced on putting this import recommendation into effect," he said.

"Apart from an arrogant Government not wanting genuine parliamentary reform, one of the inevitable outcomes of Mr McCreevy's decision is that tribunals of inquiry will continue to dominate," said Mr Rabbitte.

He then added that it was unthinkable that a tribunal was the only way to inquire into a matter of public interest.

Mr Rabbitte rejected suggestions that the Supreme Court Abbeylara decision had sounded a death knell for the work of Oireachtas committees, saying Dáil inquiries in general had not been successfully challenged since the Supreme Court ruling referred only to matters of individual liability.

The Department of Justice plans for parliamentary reform - outlined in the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Bill 2002 were seriously inadequate, he said.

"All of this the abandonment of the proposal for inspectors, an inadequate Oireachtas Commission Bill and the spurious argument put up in relation to the Abbeylara judgment clearly shows this Government to be running away from parliamentary reform and the principle of accountability to parliament," he said.

The idea of parliamentary inspectors grew from the success of the first DIRT inquiry by the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee which recommended that Dáil committees be given their own inspectors.

The inspectors were to have the power to compel witnesses to testify as well as powers of document acquisition.

Investigations would have begun with the inspectors carrying out an initial trawl of detective work, with the results of that inquiry then forming the basis for committee hearings with witnesses under oath.