Ryan says hearings will be public

THE GREEN Minister for Communications has insisted the Government’s banking inquiry will be public, amid heated exchanges with Opposition TDs.

When challenged by Labour’s Pat Rabbitte, who rejected assertions the inquiry would be public, Eamon Ryan said: “It is public ... as well as done on the back of investigative work to find the facts.

“Those responsible should be held to account and confidence should be restored to the system. I believe, absolutely, that the method we are setting out is the way in which this can be achieved.”

The role of an Oireachtas committee would be to consider the various reports and then conduct the necessary hearings based on the facts found, which a committee would not as easily have been able to find.

Mr Ryan said the mechanisms would only work if “we stop playing political games and start working together for the interests of the people of this country to try and make sure that the same mistakes are not made again”.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said: “I have to say I am a little sceptical of some of the Opposition speakers in this debate. The real objective appears to be to continue to use the banking crisis as a political football.”

The Government later rejected a Private Members’ motion from the Labour Party to give Oireachtas committees the power to establish an inquiry into the banking crisis and to adopt legislation along the lines of the party’s Houses of the Oireachtas (Powers of Inquiry) Bill.

Minister of State for Finance Dr Martin Mansergh asked if newspaper property pages were “at least for a time an integral part of the forces driving the bubble”. There was “rarely any reference to the relentless hype” in the supplements.

“It would be good if this were to be looked into if any holistic explanations are sought and lessons to be learnt and if improved safeguards are to be provided in future”.