Banking investigation - Inquiry will not just be about money

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen indulged in the most fanciful wishful thinking when he ruled out an immediate inquiry into the events and policies, the Galway-tent pressing of the flesh and the shoddy politics and ineffective regulation that colluded to destroy our economy and banks.

We, and Mr Cowen too, owe a great debt to whomever or whatever made him change his mind because the relationship between Government and the people of this state is so fraught, so very strained, that it might not have survived the haughty dismissal initially given by the Taoiseach.

His refusal to establish an inquiry would have been seen as an attempt at a cover up by one of the central players in the tragedy. Though an increasingly angry and disenchanted electorate are expected to fund a range of bank rescue packages, estimated to be heading towards €80 billion, we were fobbed off, like an impoverished tenant asking a landlord’s implacable agent for a rent review, when an inquiry was sought.

One of the many reasons Mr Cowen’s premiership is struggling to gain momentum, much less win a modicum of support, is that he has yet to realise that those days are gone forever. They are dead and gone, with Anglo Irish in the grave.

Though we have no more than an indication that an inquiry might be announced next week, it is impossible to imagine that one will not be held this year.

The US Congress has already opened its Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington and, in Iceland, a report from a powerful parliamentary review group is anticipated within the next few weeks.

Why are we still prevaricating?

We will have an inquiry and it must not have its hands tied behind its back. It must have whatever powers are needed to get to the bottom of this rotten, corrosive mess. The inquiry must have a tight timeframe. It must not, like the Moriarty tribunal, take 11 years to report, making it all but irrelevant. It must not drag on and on until witnesses either die or forget their lines as has happened in as so many tribunals.

Next week’s announcement cannot include any sort of deferral or delay as every day that passes will make it more difficult to establish the truth. Our laws will have to be revised to facilitate compellability of witnesses on foot of the Supreme Court decision around the Abbeylara investigation in 2002.

The over-riding objective must be to identify how our banks, our regulators, our Government and Central Bank, all failed to put the common good before the avarice and recklessness of bankers and developers.

The investigation must point to new ground rules, a new regulatory regime that is committed enough and powerful enough to stand between this society and a repeat of the scandals of recent years.

The most powerful people in the land will be the focus of this inquiry but it would be a mistake to imagine that it is just about money, bankers, developers or politicians.

It will be about much more. It will tell us if we have a “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” or if we have government of the people, by a few of the people, for very few of the people.