The Opposition has today repeated its call for an inquiry into the State's banking system.
Fine Gael's Richard Bruton warned against holding such an inquiry in private. In a statement, the party's finance spokesman said the public has a right to see those involved in the banking crisis held accountable in public and argued the inquiry's effectiveness would be damaged by holding it in private.
"The Dáil must assert its duty to hold public policy and its execution up to scrutiny, and this must be done in public. The general public have in many cases seen their livelihoods destroyed and taxpayers have been lumbered with debts that will beset them for years. They have a right to see those who landed them with these debts publicly explain what went wrong," Mr Bruton said.
"The essence of effective regulation is proper accountability and that accountability will have consequences.
"The people involved were public people who were entrusted with tasks for which they were paid handsomely and they have a duty to be accountable in public to the people whose livelihoods have been destroyed," the Fine Gael deputy leader said.
Fine Gael has proposed a parliamentary inquiry into the banking system with a mandate to report within six months. Party leader Enda Kenny said he had written to the other party leaders asking them to support the plan.
The Labour Party has also called for a parliamentary inquiry into the banks but has proposed a change in the law to ensure that it has the necessary powers to operate within the constraints imposed by the Supreme Court that a Dáil committee has no power to make findings on any individual’s civil or criminal liability.
Speaking today, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said he was concerned about the "very worrying false sense of complacency" being shown by the Government in relation to the State's economic difficulties.
"It is going to be a vast burden on the taxpayer, and that is why we need to have an inquiry into what happened to the banking system and get to the bottom of the full extent of the story because what has happened in Irish banking since the crisis developed . . . is that we've been getting the story incrementally," he said on RTÉ.
The Government has said it will discuss the banking issue in detail next Tuesday including “the obvious need to learn lessons from the events that led to current problems” and will subsequently clarify its position in the Dáil.