Committee may call Cowen if banking inquiry sanctioned

FORMER TAOISEACH Brian Cowen and ex-Central Bank governor John Hurley may be among those called before a banking inquiry if the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) receives Government approval to proceed.

Chairman John McGuinness of Fianna Fáil yesterday said the cross-party committee was seeking the power to compel witnesses to appear, as well as changes to legislation concerning cabinet confidentiality to allow for greater access to documents.

“This will give an opportunity to key players, whether they be bankers, politicians or public servants to outline their role and to highlight what they did and where necessary to be challenged on what they did or failed to do in dealing with the collapse of our domestic banking sector,” he said.

Mr McGuinness declined to name potential witnesses, saying it was up to the Government to decide what type of inquiry went ahead. The circumstances surrounding the decision to provide a State guarantee for the banks will likely be a key focus of any inquiry. Among those involved in the discussions that led to the contentious guarantee in September 2008, in addition to the late minister for finance Brian Lenihan, were Mr Cowen, Mr Hurley, other ministers, as well as former attorney general Paul Gallagher SC, Dermot Gleeson and Eugene Sheehy of AIB and Bank of Ireland’s Richard Burrows and Brian Goggin.

Mr McGuinness said legal restrictions placed on the Oireachtas meant findings of fact or culpability could not be made, and the committee was recommending an “inquire, record and report model”.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has said any committee could undertake such an inquiry. But an investigation that made recommendations for future policy development might more suitably involve the Oireachtas Committee on Finance. This was interpreted as an indication he favoured the latter option.

Mr McGuinness said the PAC inquiry, if sanctioned by Government, would require access to documents “that could be caught by the concept of cabinet confidentiality”. He said the committee’s preliminary analysis and framework for a banking inquiry, published yesterday, called for a review of the legislation that extended the concept of cabinet confidentiality to meetings of Government committees attended by a Minister and either the attorney general or a minister of state.

“That legislation should in our view be amended to remove such meetings from being protected by cabinet confidentiality,” he said.

He also said the inquiry “will have to be given compellability powers”, so an individual who did not respond to a request to appear would be compelled to give evidence.

“Many of the key players in these organisations have since retired or moved on. Clearly they must be given an opportunity to give evidence on how they managed the crisis, how the systems failed,” he said.

The electorate rejected the Government-backed referendum to give committees strong powers of inquiry last October.