# Who will carry out the enquiry into the banking guarantee?



## Purple (20 Sep 2013)

The government are talking about having an enquiry into the bank bailout.
They are confining it to what Fianna Fail did wrong.
Who should sit on the committee?
Peter Matthews, Shane Ross, Pierce Doherty and Joan Burton would be the 4 people I can think of that might know what they are doing.
Ross is utterly self-serving and has far too many questions to answer about his own behaviour as a journalist during the boom and Doherty is an ideologue. Burton and Matthews have a strong political agenda to support. 
Who will be able to do the job properly?
There should be an FF TD in the mix but who?


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## Brendan Burgess (20 Sep 2013)

Hi Purple

You will be pleased to hear that Shane Ross agrees with you according to the Irish Times 



> Mr Ross said that as a member of the [broken link removed],  if the inquiry came before that body he “could not possibly” present  himself as someone who was impartial because he had written a book about  the matters and had said things that were “utterly prejudicial” about  the bankers.


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## Bronte (20 Sep 2013)

Purple said:


> There should be an FF TD in the mix but who?


 
McGuinness.

I wouldn't worry about Matthews keeping to a political agenda, he cannot help himself and so would be excellent for this inquiry.


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## Purple (20 Sep 2013)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Purple
> 
> You will be pleased to hear that Shane Ross agrees with you according to the Irish Times



Am I being cynical in thinking that he doesn’t want to ask questions, or have questions asked of him, about Fingers Fingleton?


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## Brendan Burgess (20 Sep 2013)

I think it's clear to most people that an Oireachtas Committee would be a political event and not a genuine enquiry.  I think that Shane Ross is expressing that view.

I presume that whoever conducts the enquiry will ask him about his defence of Fingers and the Nationwide. 

Brendan


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## Purple (20 Sep 2013)

Brendan Burgess said:


> I presume that whoever conducts the enquiry will ask him about his defence of Fingers and the Nationwide.


I don't share your optimism.


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## itsallwrong (20 Sep 2013)

Does it really matter?
The public have been shafted with the bill.
Nothing will change that.
Nobody will get punished except the taxpayer.


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## Purple (20 Sep 2013)

itsallwrong said:


> The public have been shafted with the bill.



What, specifically, do you mean by that and what should they have done instead?


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## T McGibney (20 Sep 2013)

There should be no inquiry. Full stop.


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## Purple (20 Sep 2013)

T McGibney said:


> There should be no inquiry. Full stop.



Probably.
Unless they say what was done wrong and what should have been done instead all they will be doing is re-hashing what we’ve read in various books and newspapers over the last few years.


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## T McGibney (20 Sep 2013)

Purple said:


> Probably.
> Unless they say what was done wrong and what should have been done.



But sure they will say that. However, even if they do a superb job, any findings they make will be inevitably compromised by their own intimate involvement both in the events that led up to the crisis, and in its aftermath.


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## Sunny (20 Sep 2013)

My committee would be Peter Matthews, Mick Wallace, Ming Flanagan, Willie O'Dea and Mary Lou McDonald.


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## Purple (20 Sep 2013)

T McGibney said:


> But sure they will say that. However, even if they do a superb job, any findings they make will be inevitably compromised by their own intimate involvement both in the events that led up to the crisis, and in its aftermath.


I agree. 
They should also look in detail at what the them opposition said before and after each budget in the years leading up to the crash.
My recollection is that only Richard Bruton ever questioned the profligate spending of FF/Labour, FF/PD and FF/Green governments during the boom.
Everyone else in FG, along with the other parties, only ever called for more spending, more pay increases and more narrowing of the tax base. 
I don’t remember any of them calling for measures to reduce property prices either (indeed they looked for grants for first time buyers etc  to further overheat the market).


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## Purple (20 Sep 2013)

sunny said:


> my committee would be peter matthews, mick wallace, ming flanagan, willie o'dea and mary lou mcdonald.



Yea, that would be fun


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## Bronte (23 Sep 2013)

Just to clarify, it was John McGuinness of FF that I was referring to. He does a great job on the PAC. Here's an interesting article which mentions McGuinness.  

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/brendan-oconnor/its-not-so-much-a-banking-inquiry-as-yet-another-fianna-fail-witchhunt-29596638.html


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## dub_nerd (23 Sep 2013)

I'd like to see someone set out in detail what an inquiry is going to achieve. I don't think an Oireachtas inquiry is remotely suitable. I'd prefer to see whichever politicians would have constituted it being sent off to Brussels as full time lobbyists for a retrospective EU contribution to Irish bank bailouts. That task is more suited to a politician's talents.


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## MrEarl (23 Sep 2013)

Sunny said:


> My committee would be Peter Matthews, Mick Wallace, Ming Flanagan, Willie O'Dea and Mary Lou McDonald.



Interesting selection - I'd hardly consider some of those names impartial.

In truth, I agree 100% with Mr. McGibney's comment above - there should be no enquiry, tribunal or anything else of that nature.  Simply put, the horse has bolted and there's no point in waisting more money, running enquiries etc at this late stage.

I'd far rather see a group of politicans made sit on a bench on Kildare Street for a few weeks talking to the public and collecting good ideas for helping rebuild the country, generate income for the economy, generate employment etc and then, bring those ideas into the Dail and present every decent suggestion for consideration & hopefully, implementation by the Government.


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## RainyDay (23 Sep 2013)

MrEarl said:


> In truth, I agree 100% with Mr. McGibney's comment above - there should be no enquiry, tribunal or anything else of that nature.  Simply put, the horse has bolted and there's no point in waisting more money, running enquiries etc at this late stage.


I don't think anyone wants a multi-million euro Tribunal to run for years, but I don't believe that the general view is that 'the horse has bolted'. There are many, many unanswered questions about who knew what, and who said what that are still unanswered, and really, really have to be answered. 

Having said that, I'm not sure at all that an Oireachtas Committee is the way to get to the bottom of this, for many of the reasons outlined above. As a first step, they should just published all the available documentation and paperwork, and let experts, media and anyone who  wants to analyse these.



MrEarl said:


> I'd far rather see a group of politicans made sit on a bench on Kildare Street for a few weeks talking to the public and collecting good ideas for helping rebuild the country, generate income for the economy, generate employment etc and then, bring those ideas into the Dail and present every decent suggestion for consideration & hopefully, implementation by the Government.


Funnily enough, politicians get all these suggestions already. Every time they go to an opening, or a funeral, or a pub, they get the suggestions from the folks who know how to run the country. Funnily enough, they will get conflicting and contradictory suggestions every day. Funnily enough, a short review by anyone inside or outside Govt who knows a bit about the policy area in question will show why these suggestions will fail.


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## Bronte (24 Sep 2013)

RainyDay said:


> Having said that, I'm not sure at all that an Oireachtas Committee is the way to get to the bottom of this, for many of the reasons outlined above. As a first step, they should just published all the available documentation and paperwork, and let experts, media and anyone who wants to analyse these.
> 
> .


 
Agreed that a tribunal is not the way to go.  Publishing everything would be a very good idea.


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