Banking crisis inquiry must offer no immunity to wrongdoers
An investigation into the background to the financial crisis now seems inevitable, but we need to watch the civil servants and government ministers like hawks because they are experts at ensuring that an inquiry's terms of reference protect their own actions from proper scrutiny.
The preferred option for an inquiry is along the lines of the clerical sex abuse investigation that led to the publication of the Murphy report.
It is expected that an expert, or experts, possibly from abroad, will be brought in to study documentary evidence relating to the activities of the major Irish banks in the lead up to the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank and the recapitalisation of the other major banks. This would be followed by some sort of commission, which would have full powers to carry out hearings in private.
This would ensure the inquiry would not infringe on any other investigations under way; namely, an investigation into issues surrounding Anglo Irish Bank.
But key questions remain. In what sense will this inquiry be independent? Will its membership include experts on all aspects of the crisis? Will the inquiry be independent of the Government?
The head of the inquiry will have to be a polymath, with the judgment of Solomon and a deep understanding of Irish society and our unique financial and political system. He, or she, will also have to be able to operate without fear or favour. That rules out any politician, past or present, and most academics and lawyers, whose pettifogging approach to the law has mired most of our tribunals in interminable and expensive navel gazing.
The probe must be reasonably quick, but it is even more important that it offers no immunity to those responsible for wrongdoing. While most of those responsible for the crisis veer between incompetent and grossly incompetent, some of the crisis's progenitors are guilty of criminal actions and it is vital the public cynicism about the probability of them going to jail is not proved well founded.
Indeed, it is more important that people go to jail than that the truth be discovered. Bankers, like priests and other former pillars of the establishment, must operate in future with the thought of a possible jail sentence at the back of their minds.
It is much more likely they will behave with a basic sense of fairness and decency if they believe their actions will be scrutinised by the courts rather than by a general inquiry.
To this end, it is important that 2010 finally sees the creation of a much bigger garda fraud squad with a mandate to prosecute white-collar crime of all types. Governments of all hues have ignored the fraud squad for too long, preferring to concentrate on easier targets. It beggars belief that there has been no prosecution by gardai this far into the crisis.
Most readers with even a basic knowledge of the economy will not have to think too hard before coming up with the names of some former business leaders who should have stood trial by now.
At a much lower level, gardai should be in dialogue with the Financial Services Ombudsman, who regularly publishes details of disgraceful and underhand transactions by unidentified financial services companies and their employees.
- MAEVE DINEEN
Irish Independent
