GREEN PARTY leader John Gormley is seeking a meeting with Taoiseach Brian Cowen today to discuss serious differences between the coalition parties over whether an inquiry into the banking crisis should take place in secret or in public.
Green Party Ministers are on a collision course with their coalition partners at tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting if Fianna Fáil Ministers insist the inquiry should be held in private, as reports at the weekend suggested.
Green Party chairman Senator Dan Boyle yesterday reiterated his party’s commitment to the involvement of an Oireachtas committee in the inquiry process.
“We accept the need for a preliminary inquiry to be conducted in private by some expert who can produce a report into the banking sector,” said Mr Boyle.
“We are clear that the process will have to be an open one, that the Oireachtas will have to have an involvement and that it should be concluded in a specified timeframe,” Mr Boyle added.
A Government spokesman said yesterday that no final decision on the format of an inquiry had been made, but he pointed to comments from the Taoiseach in the past that it would be a very serious mistake to do anything that would jeopardise the steps taken in the last 16 months to restore stability to the banking system.
The Green Party is adamant that the Dáil has to have a role in the inquiry.
“There are two key points. The first is that the format of the inquiry has not yet been decided, and the second is that the Green Party will be insisting that it will have to involve a public dimension,” said a spokesman last night.
The differences between the two coalition parties reflect growing tension between them.
The recent comment from Tipperary TD Mattie McGrath that Green members were “too politically correct and need to be roughed up a bit” caused deep annoyance.