The Dáil resumes - Two steps to make society more open

THE Dáil returned after the summer recess yesterday and it is hard to remember a parliamentary session that faced such terrible challenges and had so very few options available to respond to them.

Even yesterday’s welcome announcement that we are to get better terms on another tranche of IMF-EU loans — saving us another €600 million a year — won’t do much to improve the mood of the moment as it is overshadowed by the growing financial turmoil across Europe.

Commission president José Manuel Barroso’s declaration that the EC is preparing options for the introduction of eurobonds, despite German opposition, underlines the potential for collapse.

Señor Barroso called for much closer political integration and said the EU needed a “new federalist moment” to overcome the most serious challenge for the union in a generation. Speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg he described the crisis as a threat to the entire European project.

“This is a fight for the jobs and prosperity of families in all our member states,” he said. “This is a fight for the economic and political future of Europe. This is a fight for what Europe represents in the world. This is a fight for European integration itself.”

Those firm words many may not be as inspirational as “we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the cliff tops” but like Churchill’s great call to arms, he cut to the core issues and how they might impact on nearly all Europeans.

It is, as America warned earlier this week and as China warned yesterday, essential that a solution to the European debt crisis be found before it moves beyond any intervention. Only time will tell if that can be achieved but one thing we know about this calamity already is that, among many other things, it is rooted in a lack of transparency and oversight which led to ineffective regulation and ultimately the threat to euro zone stability.

And, despite all the gloom and apprehension, two relatively small events yesterday were an occasion for a belated, sincere and muted cheer.

Ombudsman and Information Commissioner Emily O’Reilly has ruled that Nama is a public authority and is therefore subject to the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.

Nama has been controversial since even before it was established and one of its architects — economist Peter Bacon — has said that it has become something it was not meant to be. Vast public resources are involved and the body will play a central role in creating the conditions needed for some sort of recovery. Because of this it is essential that the workings of the body be transparent. The potential for suspicion is far too great not to enforce a policy of openness.

The second event was another step along the road to amending the legislation that facilitated the Abbeylara ruling which decreed that the Oireachtas could not pursue an inquiry if the good name of any citizen might be impugned.

This is a preposterous veto that has no place in the society that we all hope ours might become. The sooner it is taken from the statue books the better.