Kenny urged to scrap banking inquiry

Enda Kenny is under pressure to scrap the controversial banking inquiry and to set up an independent probe after one of its central members quit, claiming he had lost all hope in it being free from Cabinet control.

The Dáil technical group will meet tomorrow to discuss a replacement member for Independent TD Stephen Donnelly, who said Mr Kenny had subverted the will of the Oireachtas by increasing the membership of the banking inquiry committee last week to ensure a Government majority.

There is now very little appetite among the technical group to participate in the hearings following the Government’s actions, and sources said it could be difficult to find a willing replacement for Mr Donnelly.

The Wicklow TD, who was seen as a key member of the inquiry team, announced his decision yesterday, criticising the Government’s “crass and cynical” decision to “control” the inquiry, which will look at political, regulator, and other decisions leading up to the banking collapse.

His decision was also due to Mr Kenny’s “extraordinary” comments in the Dáil last Tuesday when he said that, in order for the terms of reference for the inquiry to be set, the Government must have a majority.

Mr Donnelly said this demonstrated that “the Government majority being railroaded through was so the Government could set the terms of reference, pass the final report, and ensure they would know what the members of the banking inquiry would do”.

Fellow Independent TD Shane Ross said the inquiry was now “completely and utterly doomed”.

It was thrown into furthers chaos last night when one of its original nine members, Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, told the two members added by the Government last Thursday — Fine Gael senator Michael D’Arcy and Labour senator, Susan O’Keeffe — to quit “to restore public confidence” in its work. “I believe that this is the only means by which the public can see that their concerns are being addressed,” he said.

Fianna Fáil said the Government’s decision to “overturn” an earlier Oireachtas decision on the committee’s make-up, was “a shocking development and one that undermined the entire process”.

The party’s finance spokesman and one of its two members on the committee, Michael McGrath, said the “entire viability” of the inquiry is in jeopardy. “This latest development, with the departure of a well-qualified and respected independent TD plunges the process into even further trouble,” said Mr McGrath.

Fianna Fáil is renewing its calls for a “genuinely independent and transparent process along the lines of the Leveson Inquiry”, the judicial public inquiry into press practices in Britain.

This, said Mr McGrath, is the only style of inquiry “where the public can have full confidence that the only agenda at play is the desire to get to the truth”.

“It’s very hard to see how the Government can possibly re-establish any sort of public respect or confidence in its plan,” said Mr McGrath. “Going back to the drawing board and choosing a proper format might at least give the country a way to get to the truth.”

Mr Kenny and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore yesterday held a discussion on the inquiry but did not discuss Mr Donnelly’s departure, said a spokesperson, who added it was agreed that the whip would not be imposed on Government members of the committee.

Former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes accused Mr Donnelly of “being a bit precious” in resigning, given that he had agreed to go on the committee, understanding in the first place that it would have a Government majority.

However, Mr Dukes added that the Government had been very unwise in the way it had acted, because insisting on an overall majority at this point had proved counterproductive.