Irish solution needed for banking problem

There will be no satisfactory Oireachtas enquiry into the banking crisis since such a thing is absolutely unconstitutional.

It all comes down to two words in Article 40 of the Constitution about the State’s duty to protect everybody’s ‘good name’.

As interpreted by the Supreme Court, this means that a banking crisis, however severe, is the merest triviality compared to the danger of anybody making unproven allegations against any of the bankers.

Even if the committee discussion is civil rather than criminal in nature (and so they are ‘only’ talking about competence rather than fraud, for instance), any resulting court action will assume that any bankers named by the committee are the living saints that their ‘good name’ confers on them.

This means that any Dáil committee is, in effect, The House UnAmerican Activities Committee searching for Reds under the bed. Consider Shane Ross, for instance. He knows a thing or two about banking and may even be an expert on the subject.

But if he were on such a committee, the constitutional danger that the courts see (and so prevent) is that he might start making outrageous allegations about the people before him. If he happened to say that some named banker was lazy, such a horrendous slur would effectively nullify anything else the committee found or said.

So people with actual knowledge of banking must be ignored and the job given to a judge. It’s an Irish problem that needs an Irish solution.

Frank Desmond

Evergreen Road

Cork