Committee forum has much to offer

There are pros and cons to granting full investigative powers to Oireachtas committees, writes Regina Hennelly

IT QUICKLY came to be known as the Abbeylara siege. On April 19, 2000, a chain of events was set in motion in a small townland just outside Granard in Co Longford.

It resulted in the death of a mentally ill young man, the establishment of an Oireachtas committee to investigate the killing, and a subsequent ruling in the courts that politicians were not entitled to carry out such fact-finding enquiries.