Whitewash

So there we have it: We're going to have an enquiry into the banking crisis, but most of it will be held in private.

Over the next few weeks the Opposition parties will be accused by FF and the Green's of making political capital out a serious national issue, in an effort to deflect criticism of their flaccid investigation, but Labour and FG are right to point out that this is a whitewash.

As John Gormley explained to Pat Kenny on the Today programme this morning, it will take four months to come up with the terms of reference of the enquiry. Four freaking months!

According to Brian Lenihan they can't have a public enquiry because it would be too expensive:

"I've seen a big demand for a public inquiry, but let's be frank about it; if you want me to sign a cheque for €150 million now for the next 10 years and set up a tribunal of inquiry, that's what's going to happen if we go for a public inquiry"

Playing the 'Tribunal' card with the Irish people is a handy one for government politicians; we're all sick of Tribunals and the amount they've cost and how long they've lasted; but what they fail to point out is that it was Fianna Faíl who set up the various tribunals that we're now lumped with.

There are precedents for having cost-effective, efficient, fast investigations in public, but the government are having none of it, ostensibly because it doesn't suit them.

The reason we can't have a Daíl enquiry, in public as they did with the brilliant and cost effective DIRT enquiry, is that an Oireachtas sub-committee "did not have the right to make judgments about disputed issues of fact."

Well call me an old fashioned stick in the mud, but surely that's what legislation is for? If there's a problem with the current legality of an Oireachtas committee, then why not pass legislation to give an Oireachtas committee a legal grounding?

Then again, passing legislation is not what this government is good at: After all they only sat for 90-odd days last year. Where would they get the time between Easter, Christmas, half-term or New Year breaks to Malta!?

(Now that I mention it, can anyone think of an important piece of legislation passed since the last general election? The Blasphemy Bill doesn't count. Answers on a postcard/comment please.)

What will now happen in that all of the witnesses, whether they be the former Minister of Finance Brian Cowen, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the former Chief Executive of the Financial Regulator Patrick Neary or the Bank Executive's who spent so much time in the Fianna Faíl tent, will give evidence in secret, behind closed doors.

By the time the private reports end and are published in 2011 it will have been three years since our banking enquiry spiralled into meltdown. As of yet, who has paid for it? Apart from the Irish people, that is.

In the US those involved in massive financial irregularity and fraud are in jail. In Ireland corrupt politicians, crooked bankers and any other white collar criminal will never do a perp walk.

The politicians, bankers, civil servants and other who caused this crisis are untouchable in modern Ireland.

Today John Gormley drew comparisons with the Murphy enquiry when questioned about why the enquiry was being held in private. It's unbelievable the level to which the Green Party have sunk since they got into bed with Fianna Faíl.

The reason the Murphy report was held in private was to give anonymity to victims of clerical child sex abuse. What justification can there be for holding the majority of this report in secret? To spare the Taoiseach's blushes? Spare me.

Anywhere else in the world white collar crime is taken seriously. In Ireland, we put people in jail who don't pay their TV licence.

If you want to know what's gone wrong over the last decade read Shane Ross's excellent book The Bankers. You won't find it out from the government's private enquiry, whenever that finally reports. Fianna Faíl and the Greens make the FAI look like professionals.