Banking inquiry agrees to cut key sections to focus on 2008 guarantee and 2010 bailout

The bank inquiry has agreed to drastically cut the size of its crisis-hit report by ignoring any issues which do not relate to the 2008 guarantee or 2010 bailout in a bid to save the year-long investigation.

The 11 TDs and senators who form the inquiry decided on the last-minute move as it emerged the scale of inaccuracies in the draft report central to the now pressing timeline problems had been known by back-room officials for more than a month but were not revealed to the committee.

After scrapping the 750-page draft report entirely due to claims that more than 1,000 changes needed to be made by the end of last week, the inquiry yesterday agreed that its formal report must now be shortened to just 250-400 pages and only focus on “new” issues, the 2008 guarantee and 2010 bailout.