Dail a barrel of laughs, but of no use

At 6.05pm last Tuesday in Dáil Éireann , Arthur Morgan of Sinn Féin was speaking on the motion to hold an inquiry into the banking crisis.

Brian Lenihan, the Minister for Finance, was on the government front bench talking to Frank Fahey, and they were having great gas. Beside Lenihan was Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, who was standing talking to Áine Brady and Peter Power in the second row of the government benches, and they were having great gas.

Enda Kenny, the leader of Fine Gael, was on the opposition benches, talking to Kieran O’Donnell. They were having great gas. Pat Rabbitte was sitting on the Labour front bench beside Michael D Higgins, and the gas was even greater between them, as you might expect. Michael Noonan was sitting a few rows ahead of Morgan.

Noonan wasn’t having great gas, as he seemed to be asleep. However, I’m sure that wasn’t the case, because a short while later, he rose to make a fluent, persuasive speech, without a script or notes.

Caoimhghín O’Caoláin was sitting beside Morgan and seemed to be listening to him. Morgan, incidentally, was making a fine speech. O’Caoláin wasn’t having great gas either.

There was nobody else in the Dáil chamber for the motion to hold an inquiry into a crisis that will surely cost future generations of Irish people billions of euro. There was one person in the public gallery and one person (me) in the press gallery - and I am a rare visitor to Leinster House these days.

By the way, the above references to the nine TDs having great gas are not intended to suggest that they were consuming mood-altering substances, but rather that they seemed to be having fun, unprompted by any chemical stimuli, and none of them was listening to what Morgan was saying. That is the way of the Dáil.

The point of debates is that people make arguments in the hope of changing the minds of their listeners by the persuasiveness of their reasoning, on whatever issue is at stake.

There are no debates of that kind in Dáil Éireann. Contributions are mere set pieces, designed, perhaps, to impress but not to change anybody’s mind in the Dáil. This is because TDs have already made their minds up - or rather the party whips have already made up TDs’ minds for them.

The Dáil takes no decisions, except in the formal sense of authorising whatever the government has already decided to do. It didn’t matter last Tuesday and Wednesday what anyone said on the banks inquiry, as what the government had already decided was going to be approved. Several opposition speakers complained about the exclusion of the Oireachtas from the inquiry into the banking crisis.

The Oireachtas is excluded from almost everything. It is irrelevant, aside from deciding every five years or so who should be Taoiseach.

The theory is that parliament legislates and holds the government of the day accountable. Not so. It is the government which decides on all legislation, and parliament merely acquiesces.

As for holding the government of the day accountable? What nonsense. The Oireachtas is precluded by the Supreme Court from involvement in any inquiry that might cause reputations to be damaged, even inferentially.

So make no mistake about it:

an Oireachtas inquiry into the banking crisis, as demanded by Fine Gael and Labour, is simply not doable, unless it were an inquiry devoid of any suggestion that anyone was to blame.

Otherwise, within the first few hours of such an inquiry opening, someone would rush down to the High Court to have it stopped and, after a delay of several months, the Supreme Court would declare: ‘‘Not a chance." And we’d be back to square one.

So it’s either a commission of investigation to be held in private, as has now been decided, or a full-scale tribunal to be held in public.

Lenihan and Taoiseach Brian Cowen maintained that a commission of investigation would be much cheaper and much faster than a tribunal.

But how could this be so? Witnesses and persons under scrutiny have exactly the same entitlements to legal representation in a commission of investigation as they do at a tribunal, so where are the cost savings?

As for time, a commission of investigation would be liable to precisely the same delaying tactics that subvert the work of tribunals.

There is one advantage of a commission, however. As it would sit in private, there would be less likelihood of its being derailed by procedures such as, for example, the prosecution of a witness in relation to matters under investigation.

Alternatively, a prosecution would not be derailed by a private inquiry, which certainly would happen with a public one. However, it seems to me that there is an overriding consideration here. Billions of euro in public monies are being expended in bailing out the banks for the crisis which bankers, public servants and ministers caused.

If there is to be accountability to the public who have to pay for the recklessness of the banks, isn’t it right that the accountability should be exercised in public view?

Isn’t it right that the public should be able to see and hear the evidence and decide for themselves where the blame lies and what needs to be done before they are impoverished again?