Oireachtas inquiry would be too political

THERE are two basic issues to be decided before the official inquiry into the banking collapse is set up: will it get to the truth and will it win the next election? I don’t think I need to spell out the priority in the minds of all the political parties. Fine Gael and Labour will want to ensure Fianna Fáil gets its come-uppance, while Fianna Fáil will want to protect its own arse.

Getting to the truth about what caused the collapse is only a secondary issue. Ensuring it will never happen again will also be down the list of priorities.

The whole focus of all the political parties, whether they are in Government or Opposition, between now and 2016, will be to maximise their own vote and get back into power. Pay no heed to all this lofty talk you are going to hear about fairness and justice in relation to the inquiry; the be-all and end-all of politics is power. Without power, you have nothing but hot air. Remember what Mary Harney once said, “The worst day in Government is better than the best day in Opposition”.

I am not being cynical about politicians or about politics. I am merely pointing out the reality. Enda Kenny and some of his ministers have already let the cat out of the bag. They want to find out the extent of the “collusion” between Fianna Fáil and the bankers, which led to the present sorry state of our finances.

They don’t want an inquiry. They have already decided Fianna Fáil are guilty. “To hell with a trial; we want a hanging.” They need to see Fianna Fáil swinging from the nearest tree so they can get on with running the State for the unforeseeable future without any further interruptions from those scuts in Fianna Fáil, who should never have been let within an ass’s roar of government anyway. Of course, Fianna Fáil always believed that it and it alone was the party of power and Fine Gael and the small parties were mere amateurs when it came to politics.

So I do not believe an Oireachtas inquiry is the way to go about finding out what happened to our banks and ensuring it will not happen again. Politicians will only want to slag each other off, while protecting themselves. Actually, an Oireachtas inquiry into the crisis would be almost as bad as asking the banks themselves to do it. You would never get to the truth.

Whatever kind of inquiry is set up should be independent. It should not be conducted by a TD. It should be fair and it should find the truth as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Now that’s a tall order. However, if we can’t fulfill those criteria, we might as well not bother with any inquiry at all.

You may think I am being too hard on TDs. I am not. I just do not trust that they could come to fair and just decisions when they have the opportunity to bury an opponent. They are only human in that regard. Their livelihoods might be at stake.

As I have pointed out here on numerous occasions, I spent some 30 years as a newspaper reporter recording the antics and otherwise of our TDs and senators in Leinster House. So I have good reason to be sceptical about their motives.

Have you ever been to the Dáil? If you are reading this column, you must surely have some interest in politics. A visit to the Dáil might just put you off politics for life. However, you are bound to learn something if you have not found it out for yourself already.

If you would like to visit the Dáil, contact any of the four TDs or two senators from Clare. That should be easy because they all make themselves freely available to everybody.

Tell the man – there are no women TDs or senators in Clare but hopefully, that is all going to change – that you would like to attend a session of the Dáil. He will make all the arrangements, meet you at the gate of Leinster House and conduct you to your seat on the public gallery. He will even buy you a pint or a cup of coffee. Try and make the early train from Ennis, Sixmilebridge or Limerick and you can spend most of the day watching TDs and senators at close quarters in the Dáil, Seanad, bar and restaurant and get the last train home again the same day.

However, it is important that you tell your TD or senator that you wish to be in the Dáil when something is happening. You don’t want to be in the House during some dull debate with only four or five deputies present. You need to be there during the Order of Business or Taoiseach’s Questions, when the Dáil is likely to be at its liveliest. You have only a couple of weeks to do this because the TDs and senators will be going away on their summer holidays at the end of July and will not be back again until the end of September or beginning of October.

A visit to the Dáil should be on the agenda of everybody who visits Dublin. Admission is free and you will certainly learn something. If you are lucky, you will also be entertained. It amazes me that few people I ask have ever been to the Dáil, while most tell me they have been to the zoo. You can see any kind of animal in the zoo but it takes a unique kind of species to get a seat in the Dáil.

Go and judge for yourself and do not let me influence you. See if you think they are capable of issuing a fair and just report on the banking collapse.