Convince us inquiry won’t dodge the truth
It was taken as a signal that Mr Cowen was anxious to distance the party from the frequent claims that FF was far too influenced by leading players in the construction industry.
In much the same way, Mr Cowen takes umbrage to any opposition TD who attempts to portray particular Government policies as being a sop to the developers, builders or bankers.
Mr Cowen believes that the party he presides over is a pure and virtuous one. The problem is that he didn’t always preside over it, and the stains of the past cannot easily be removed.
This is the major difficulty Mr Cowen and his colleagues now face as they attempt to convince the public that the banking inquiry they are setting up will not be a whitewash.
The inquiry will involve two stages. Firstly, the Government will commission two separate preliminary reports on aspects of the banking crisis – one from the Central Bank governor and the other from a suitable independent expert – which will be completed by the end of May. These reports will essentially form a preliminary inquiry of sorts.
Once completed, a commission of investigation will then be established, the terms of reference of which will be “informed” by the conclusions of the two preliminary reports. The aim will be for the commission to complete its work by the end of the year.
The trouble is that commissions of investigation take place behind closed doors. They are secret inquiries to which the public has no access. Nothing is likely to be known about the progress of the commission’s work until such time as its final report is published.
If it wasn’t for FF’s past record, that wouldn’t be a problem.
After all, it was a commission of investigation that examined the response of the Church and state to allegations of child sex abuse in the Dublin archdiocese – and nobody is quibbling about that commission’s work, because its report was considered to be so authoritative and comprehensive. In fact, the commission, chaired by Ms Justice Yvonne Murphy, has been widely praised for its work.
But the problem with a commission of investigation into the banking crisis is that FF is so centrally linked to the issue.
The party has been in Government since 1997, and put in place many of the policies which bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) blame for fuelling the boom and overheating the economy.
FF also oversaw the financial regulatory regime during this period which, in hindsight, proved so terribly ineffective.
On top of all that, there are the frequent accusations of a “toxic triangle” having played fast and loose with the economy – namely FF, the developers and the bankers.
It goes without question, then, that any inquiry into the causes of the banking crisis should examine Government policy and action – or inaction – in the run-up to the crisis.
There is no reason why that work cannot be done satisfactorily by a commission of investigation. Equally, a private inquiry is a good way of ensuring that it does not damage the separate investigations into various banking issues being carried out by the Director of Corporate Enforcement and the Financial Regulator.
But to the opposition, and perhaps many of the public, it will seem very convenient indeed that FF is establishing an inquiry that will examine behind closed doors potentially embarrassing issues for the party.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny labelled the inquiry format a “self-protection racket”. His Labour counterpart Eamon Gilmore claimed it was a “dodge” and a “whitewash”.
The Government’s defence was that there will be a public element – principally that an Oireachtas committee will get to examine the commission’s report and can hold public hearings on that report if it sees fit.
But even that proposal has limitations. For a start, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan suggested that the appropriate committee to do this would be the Oireachtas Finance Committee, which happens to be chaired by a FF TD, Michael Ahern.
This is in no way to impugn Mr Ahern or suggest he would be anything but an impartial chair. But in order to convince the public that this entire exercise is not a whitewash, surely it would be a better idea to task the Dáil Public Accounts Committee – which is chaired by FG TD Bernard Allen – with the job of considering the commission’s report.
Furthermore, if the Government really wants to convince the public of the merits of this inquiry, it will simply have to ensure that the relevant figures – Mr Cowen chief among them – take questions in a public forum.
That can take place at the committee, after the commission has finished its work and issued its report. But it simply has to happen if the public is to be convinced that answers are being provided.
Lastly, the Government should extend the cut-off point for the inquiry. The envisaged cut-off point for investigation is September 2008, the month when the crisis erupted and the Government intervened in an attempt to solve it. But much more of interest happened after that month – such as the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank, for starters.
Speaking to reporters last night, Mr Lenihan said he would “reflect” upon the cut-off date, but gave a firm indication he did not see reason to extend it.
Part of the reason, he said, is that everything that happened after September 2008 was an attempt to solve the crisis rather than a cause of it. But mostly, he indicated, he had already given a full account to the Dáil of all Government decisions taken since September 2008.
“The idea that there was some kind of a conspiracy – or that the Government should simply open up its own books and subject itself to a tribunal of inquiry on how it has done its business – I would reject that completely.”
To be fair to Mr Lenihan, these issues have been debated extensively in the Dáil. But the problem was that his explanation sounded an awful lot like Mr Cowen rejecting allegations about FF’s links with developers and bankers.
The simple fact is that many of the public will not accept statements of honesty from the Government, no matter how sincere the individual politician is. They want the proof.
And so the cut-off point should be extended, the Government books should be opened – and when the commission finishes its private inquiry, figures such as Mr Cowen should appear before the Oireachtas committee in public to explain precisely their role in events.
