Lynch: ‘Balanced and fair’ banking inquiry

Common sense should be applied when using comments of the past to measure any bias of TDs and senators who will sit on the committee carrying out the banking inquiry, according to its chairman, Labour’s Ciarán Lynch.

Mr Lynch was responding after the broadcast of a Dáil speech he made in January 2010 in which he said the crisis was “caused by Fianna Fáil’s governance of the economy and the policy decisions it made over the past decade.”

The 2010 speech, which Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said demonstrated Mr Lynch “giving a fixed opinion on the banking crisis” was played on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics.

Mr Lynch — an opposition TD at the time — said decisions leading up to the crash were “not decisions made in the boardrooms of AIB, Bank of Ireland or Anglo for that matter”.

He told the Dail: “They were not made on building sites by developers or builders. These were decisions made in this House and, therefore, those who enacted these policies should be held accountable by this house and inquired into by their peers.”

Mr Lynch responded yesterday, saying the arbitration of whether any member’s bias will be decided by the Committee on Procedures and Privileges, which has yet to rubberstamp the terms of reference and the nine-member team.

“A level of common sense must be applied when assessing what is, by nature, an adversarial process of engagement in the Dáil,” said Mr Lynch.

The Cork South Central TD said the inquiry’s hearings will be “balanced and fair” and he hoped members would “leave the club jersey at the door and do a good job on behalf of the Irish public”.

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, who will also be a member of the committee, said the whole country will be watching in and “if anyone goes in there to grand-stand or have a go at political opponents then we won’t be forgiven”.

He called on the Government to “make it very clear” to the ECB that they should co-operate and answer questions — particularly on its role in preventing the burning of bank bondholders.

Social Protection Minister Joan Burton said that ECB members do not “live in an ivory tower” and being independent should not mean they are unaccountable.