Tribunal best way to deal with inquiry into financial disaster

DO we really want a random collection of unqualified TDs investigating the most calamitous financial disaster in the history of the State?

The former head of Barclays Bank, Bob Diamond, appeared before a Commons Select Committee last week to answer questions on the rate-fixing scandal that has mired the bank in controversy.

Billed as a highly anticipated take-down of an arrogant bankster, the resulting damp squib was an embarrassment to watch as Mr Diamond ran rings around his inquisitor MPs, most of whom seemed more perturbed about the fact that the upstart American had the temerity to address them by their first names than the extraordinary financial scandal that rocked the UK’s financial services sector.