Banking inquiry strapped for time to publish report

Fiachra Ó Cionnaith

Irish Examiner Political Reporter

Updated 9am

The bank inquiry is today in an increasingly difficult race against time to ensure its report is published after it failed to agree amendments to key chapters despite an 11-hour meeting on Friday.

The 11-strong TD and Senator team will meet again from 9am on Saturday to sign off on some of the most contentious aspects of its year-long investigation - despite initially hoping to have them completed yesterday.

It is understood that despite meeting until just before 1am on Friday night inquiry members only agreed seven of its now 11 chapters on what caused the bank collapse.

They include those on the property sector; the bank guarantee; the role of State institutions such as the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator; the preparation for and lead-up to the economic crisis; what happened in the months after the guarantee; NAMA; and the banks.

However, three of the most controversial and politically sensitive sections - on bondholder and EU burden sharing; the 2010 Troika bailout; and all parties' economic policies between 1999 and the 2008 crash - could not be agreed.

A fourth chapter on auditors has also been added, indicating the last-ditch nature of deliberations and adding yet more work for the crisis-hit investigation.

The ongoing issues with the inquiry will now have to be addressed during a day long meeting on Saturday.

This meeting will separately have to discuss, debate and sign off on between 60 and 80 vital findings of the year-long report and an executive summary that has been mired in claims of alleged political bias for days.

While the inquiry team officially believes all work can still be signed off on today, privately a number of members believe this will not be possible due to the highly politically sensitive nature of the issues involved.

As such, the inquiry may be forced to meet again on Sunday if it wants to provide a final report to its senior counsel by Monday morning - a deadline which if not met will effectively kill off the investigation.

In the event an agreement can be reached, the inquiry will hand over its patched together report to the senior counsel overseeing the long-running investigation's work on Monday morning.

The legal expert will then have until Wednesday to decide whether it is in a fit enough state to be sent out to individuals named in the document for an unavoidable rights of reply process immediately, needs further amendments, or is still unworkable and should be scrapped.

Any further delay would cause havoc to the already tight January 27 planned publication date, which is just 24 hours before the inquiry legally must end.

Failure to hit any of these deadlines would also cause havoc to mooted coalition plans for a February general election as if the Dail is dissolved before the report is published the multi-million euro investigation will cease to exist.

This week's earlier extension of the inquiry's expected publication date from January 20 to January 27 means a potential Friday February 12election date is now a non-runner.

Similarly, it places a Friday February 19 date in a precarious position.

A Friday February 26 date would also almost certainly be wiped out by a further extension, with a March election so close to the 1916 centenary celebrations being unpopular among coalition strategists as it could allow Sinn Fein to gain votes through its version of links going back to the Easter Rising.