Up to 70 to be given access to Oireachtas banking inquiry report

king inquiry is to receive legal advice today, confirming that the final report can be distributed to interested parties tomorrow.

Senior counsel Sara Moorhead has been examining the final report of the committee for a number of days.

She is to brief the members of the inquiry today and will outline a small number of changes to be made to its contents.

However, there are no fundamental alterations to be made to the report.

Members will consider the changes at a meeting today before distributing it to interested parties.

Up to 70 people are expected to be given access to parts of the report, including former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm and former taoisigh Brian Cowen and Bertie Ahern. The parties will be given 14 days to consider the report and to submit their responses.

The final report is expected to claim the Central Bank had a contingency plan to avoid a bank default in September 2008.The Irish Times understands the draft report dismisses the suggestion that Anglo Irish Bank would have defaulted on the morning of September 30th if a guarantee was not agreed the night before.

The committee is expected to find that the Central Bank lobbied for a guarantee on the night of September 29th, but had a plan in place if one was not agreed.

The report, which runs to 450 pages, is said also to dismiss the idea that the blanket bank guarantee was decided on the night of September 29th, 2008. It is expected to outline how the option was being examined for months ahead of the decision being made by the Fianna Fáil-Green coalition.

The report is said to criticise successive governments for ignoring advice from the Department of Finance.

The inquiry heard that the department had been warning of risks to the economy for 10 years before the crash.

Another one of the inquiry’s recommendations will be to ask the Attorney General to take legal action against the European Central Bank over its refusal to allow Ireland to “burn” senior bondholders.