Call for allegations on expenses to be referred to DPP

SEANAD:THE COMMITTEE investigating the expenses of Senator Ivor Callely and other members of the House should refer the matter to the DPP, Fine Gael justice spokesman Eugene Regan said.

Mr Regan said he wanted the leader of the House to state whether the laws passed by the Oireachtas applied only to “other people, or do they apply to everyone equally?”

If they applied to everybody then he was asking that the committee investigating the expenses of a number of Senators refer the matter to the DPP.

“I think this is not an issue simply of a breach of the rules of the House or members’ interests but is a criminal matter.”

Cathaoirleach Pat Moylan intervened to say that the Members’ Interest Committee was examining the expenses issue in order to make a decision.

He did not want anyone to pre-empt the committee’s decision.

Mr Regan said he was advising the committee to refer it to the DPP, “who, I think, is the appropriate authority to deal with the matter”.

The commission of inquiry into the financial crisis would be a farce if it did not encompass the Department of Finance and officials in it, Mary White (FF) said. It was critical that its terms of reference “be wide enough to facilitate this”.

“The department pervaded every aspect of Irish society and put its foot on stopping developments on many social issues.”

One example was the lack of funding for free breast-care screening for women over 65. The department was a male-dominated organisation.

Dr Michael Somers, who had been an outstanding head of the National Treasury Management Agency, had dared to criticise it. The bottom line of what he had said was that the department had observed the increasing tax take from the property development sector, but had failed to do anything about it, she said.

Speaking in the debate on the banking reports, minister of State Dr Martin Mansergh said the Government fully endorsed the conclusions of the preliminary reports prepared by the Central Bank governor and by Messrs Regling and Watson.

Dan Boyle (Green), deputy Seanad leader, said that all the actors involved in what had happened, particularly the State agencies including the Department of Finance, must be open to close scrutiny.

“The culture of the department has, I think, informed the situation in which we find ourselves now. The question that it should be removed or above or beyond particular scrutiny is not one that I or my party accepts.”

Eoghan Harris (Ind) strongly criticised comments by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in relation to Israel.

Noting that the Czech ambassador had been in the Distinguished Visitors’ Gallery, he said he would recommend all fellow-Senators to study very carefully the statement of the Czech president “who manages to give Israel its due and the Palestinians their due, and contrasts very strongly with the intemperate hysteria that is being created by our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin”.