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THERE HAS BEEN much talk and controversy about its formation, but the banking inquiry committee will meet in private for the first time this morning.
The inquiry is due to hold its first meeting in private session in Leinster House at 10am where the 11 members – six government and five opposition – will hold initial talks on the terms of reference for the investigation into the collapse of the Irish banking system.
“The Committee will be briefed on legal, procedural, administrative, logistical and communications issues. It will also hold a preliminary discussion on the development of a proposal to the CPPs (Committee on Procedures and Privileges),” committee chair Ciarán Lynch said.
Once the terms of reference are agreed the CPPs of both the Seanad and Dáil will approve the inquiry proposal and finalise the membership.
The meeting comes over a week after it was first scheduled to take place after a series of controversies over the initial membership delayed proceedings.
The government came in for a barrage of criticism after it first failed to ensure it had a majority, then failed to remove a member, then added two members, then lost one member, and then informed the the remaining government members there would be no whip applied.
The most recent member added to the Oireachtas committee was Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins, who stepped in to fill the role vacated by the independent deputy Stephen Donnelly after he quit over government interference.
Changes and conflict
Prior to this there were attempts to remove Fianna Fáil senator Marc McSharry from the committee, after claims – later withdrawn – of a conflict of interest.
The Government lost its majority on the inquiry when two Labour Senators didn’t attend a Seanad selection committee vote, leading to McSharry being added instead.
Then when it failed to remove McSharry, the government added two of its own senators to ensure a majority. This led to a furious row between Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and the Taoiseach and Kenny being compared to Hitler during a testy Seanad debate.
The row saw Donnelly quit last weekend leading the government to state that it will not be imposing party whips on Fine Gael and Labour members of the inquiry.
However some government members privately doubt whether this will actually happen in practice believing a ‘soft whip’ will still apply.
What the inquiry will examine
The inquiry will be tasked with looking at political policy, regulatory structures and banking governance, Kenny said earlier this week. We have already set out the five key issues facing the banking inquiry before it starts.
The inquiry was promised by the government after the conclusion of the trial of two former bankers at Anglo Irish Bank, who were found to have participated in an illegal lending scheme that involved €450m.
The inquiry, which will be headed by Labour TD Ciarán Lynch, will look at:
It was this bank guarantee that led to several austerity budgets and the 2010 EU-IMF bailout.
Although a number of investigations have already probed the banking collapse, including a report by the current governor of the Central Bank Patrick Honohan, this is the politicians’ turn to examine the issues and bring key figures before them into the public arena although such hearings are unlikely to take place until next year.
The membership of the committee includes Fine Gael TDs Kieran O’Donnell, John-Paul Phelan and Eoghan Murphy as well as senator Michael D’Arcy. Labour is represented by the aforementioned chairman Ciarán Lynch and senator Susan O’Keeffe.
Opposition members include Finana Fáil TD Michael McGrath and senator Marc MacSharry. Sinn Féin is represented by Pearse Doherty while Joe Higgins and independent senator Seán Barrett make up the rest of the membership.
- additional reporting from Hugh O’Connell
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Massive massive credit to all concerned for sticking their head above the parapet to lampoon . They deserve all right minded peoples support irrespective of religion for leading the way in dismantling taboo subject. Some muslims will be offended but they more than anyone need to marginalise the vile extremists that are isis.And mocking the british women who marry jihadists is another string to the bow. Kudos
That’s f*cking funny.
Won’t have gone down well in Bradford or Birmingham.
@The_Techno_Mage: Only marginally funny, very predictable humour no great originality in the sketch and not very convincing. 3 out of 10. Give me Brendan Grace any day.
The fact that it is done at all is the issue…. Islam not noted for its sense of humour…… There is no Iman Ted showing in Pakistan
I think this is very clever. Online satire is an effective way to embarrass and shame idiots who believe in radical islam
Comedy (weak as it is in the sketch) does not discriminate nor should it. Keep it up…maybe do ‘Jordan Shore’ next…
“Marginally funny” “predictable”. That IS Brendan Grace.
Let’s just hope the Far-Right in Ireland don’t try to have it banned like they did with Father Ted. Fair play to the Liberal and progressive writers and producers of this sketch.
Far left open borders crowd spent all day yesterday trying to ban an article from the Irish Times because they disagreed with the authors opinion.
Far left open borders anarchists led by rejected political loser Aodohan O’Riordan recently attempted to have RTE permanently ban from air, speakers who shared a different opinion to their own far left dogmatic outlook.
@OpenBorders:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
New account Liam, Tariq, Petr etc etc? hahaha
Coz you have to laugh at embarrassing rubbish like Grace, Tierney and all the other homegrown drek coz they’re, yknow, our own
Like Citizen Khan. Omg such sh@t. Like Give my head Peace. BBC doesnt always get it right
Let me guess. It is liberals who are complaining that Islamic extremists are being mocked?
@Superfiends: Or that ISIS represents the fundamentals of Islam.
@Superfiends:
Surprised Amnesty haven’t lodged a complaint with the UN.
@Alex Falcone: i hear colm o’gorman is on newstalk today have a whine about it
@Alex Falcone: Let’s be clear, the only people who have objected to this are those who believe it is offensive to people oppressed by ISIS. They have a point, but I think this kind of satire which mocks the ridiculousness of their so called cause is important, and it follows in the stead of the excellent “Four Lions” by Chris Morris.
I saw some criticism that this was “Islamophobic”, which was weird cos I thought ISIS had nothing to do with Islam?
@Emeralds: I had that argument with someone not long back “ISIS have nothing to do with Islam”.
Me: “So what does the first I stand for ?”
Them: “That proves nothing”.
Some people will play the Neville Chamberlain card under we’re all blown to smithereens.
Islam has nothing to do with ISIS unless it’s satirised, apparently.
@Fitzy:
Anything that gets Colm O’Gormans knickers in a twist is a bonus.
@Clever Jake:
Maybe to you it’s obscure, maybe to the Shia, Sufi and Ahammadi sects of Islam, but to the Sunni Wahabbi/Salafists in particular its is the purest form of Islam.
Ask yourself, where does ISIS, Nusra and Boko Haram, to name but a few, get their evil ideas from??
Isis is to Islam what Nazism was to German nationalism.
I don’t think you know what a liberal is. I am one and I think this is hilarious. I also think the people jumping up and down about Pell’s article in the Times are hilarious and pathetic. But Pell is a disgusting apologist for a disgusting ideology.
@Clever Jake:
Can’t fault you regarding the Saudis.
http://www.theworldweekly.com/reader/view/magazine/2015-01-22/the-battle-for-islam/3090
It’s really funny though ,I got a great laugh out of it. Well done.
Saw this. Quite funny.
Hopefully the actresses involved have good security protection.
If it was made here it would probably be banned under the Catholic Blasphemy Law.
@OpenBorders:
Christians have a great sense of humour. Honed in the Colosseum I believe.
No Tariq it would not
@OpenBorders: People have short memory’s and think Catholics are ok with satire, but history shows us they hate being mocked in anyway.
People forget that “Life Of Brian” was banned in Ireland until 1987, when it was unbanned the rated it as a 18′s movie which is frankly insane. It was banned for 8 years in Ireland.
Equally Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life was banned until 1990!
Very true Barry,and the off-spring of those fundamentalist radicals can be seen here daily pointing the finger of blame at everyone but themselves,they’d have us living in caves if they could,the Alt-Right are a cruel and regressive group.
Agreed, actually I’m pretty sure the Monty Python lads had to get round the clock armed protection for many years after.
It’s not specifically a Catholic blasphemy law. Sure if it was it wouldn’t matter a damn – nobody would take or succeed in a prosecution. The problem is that it is a general blasphemy law and any nut job religion could seek a prosecution.
And let’s not get too sanctimonious about it – town councils in England and Wales can ban films and it was only in 2008 that the ban was lifted in Aberystwyth after 30 years (not a RC stronghold), it was banned in Norway, in Germany and in several places in the US.
@Alex Falcone:
Alex, would you find it as funny if they were lampooning the fairy tales that you believe in rather than the ones that someone else believes?
@Pseud O’Nym:
Not at all.
Actually one of my hobbies is satirising atheists.
How can you blaspheme against something that doesnt exist lol
Brilliant sketch. Hilariously funny. Rightly having a go at the animals within ISIS. In no way “racist” or any other silly word certain people would like to call it. Sure wasn’t father Ted a great show!
Trust the liberals to come to the defence of ISIS.
I’d describe myself as quite liberal and I think it’s absolutely hilarious. Is that allowed?
Same here
Eamonn can only think in black and white. Don’t go confusing the poor rightest …Ehm..Oh yeah…snowflake.
I’m a Liberal and thought it was very funny,poor old Eamon,it’s awful confusing for bigots when they can’t pigeonhole people into neat little categories,hurts their brains.
@The Bloody Nine: You’ll have to refer to Liberal High Command. They might throw you out for not adhering to the group think though,
It’s not the Catholic Church though.
Snap. I lol’d damn hard when I watched it. Although I was thinking, someone somewhere is going to lose their shit over this.
Very funny – the people complaining are self-fulfiling prophecies of idiocy. The irony is that the day that satire is filtered is a sorry day and the end of liberal democracy… take note Liberals.
Much like the mild hysteria at the Irish times article yesterday informing people about the alt-right. We’re a generation away from eating our young.
They should use the correct RTE and BBC term….The real housewives of so called Islamic state
You cant spell fundamentalist without fun!
More to the point is that you can’t spell it without “mental”
Very well done..hilarious!
Anyone who says this is mocking Islam is essentially saying all Muslims are terrorists. Stupid SJW liberals. I think it’s brilliant.
Max Johnson Powers,it is Far Right,conservative religious groups who will be offended by this,just like fundamentalist Catholics were upset by Father Ted. Liberals create comedic satire,those on the Far Right loathe it.
I didn’t mean liberals in general. I said SJW liberals. They are a different breed altogether.
luckily satire is protected by the European courts….unfortunately, this involves a country that convicted a guy for joking about blowing up an airport if it remained closed for a week due to snow, and he had to go all the way to the supreme court to have his conviction overturned.
@Clever Jake: We’re not far off it – we’re criminalising EVERYTHING. Won’t be able to fart in public soon without running the risk of 12 months for causing offence and a further 6 for the air pollution.
Well whatever about the 12 months you deserve the six months
It’s hilarious satire, bit like the RHO Dublin
Didn’t realise it was the BBC.
Very good satire.
Well done.
There should be muslim father Ted, as funny as it was it did bring up some if issue with the church,
As they say on till you can laugh at your self you can’t change.
@JustMade Ireland:
Mullah Abdullah perhaps?
Looks class in fairness.
Can’t wait to see this
You already have. It is a sketch, not a forthcoming series lol
I disagree with people saying liberals are complaining about this. I’m one of those liberal types and while I thought it was funny, I think it was mild and didn’t go far enough. Satire is about using humour to make a political or social statement. The only people who are complaining about this are people who don’t understand satire. Reminds me of a few months ago when WWN wrote a story about sucide rates in Cork. People were out raged, completely missing the point of the story.
Brilliant!
Liberals gong mad again. Why don’t they just join ISIS
Actually it’s conservatives who are going mad,liberals created the sketch,facepalm.
@Clever Jake: Oh the liberals. Where would we be with out ye? A very uncivilized people, I would imagine.
You clearly do not understand liberalism muckymoo. It’s just a lazy label for you. Next you are going to start saying snowflake.
One of the best ways to attack that ideology is to lampoon it. And this is bloody hilarious!
some of the crackpots on here would have you believe this will happen in ballaghadreen.
@the truth: It will. And I doubt you’ll see it coming.
@ceannairblue I will just keep looking for your paronoid over the top posts on here to see it.
As satire goes I though the whole show laid it on a bit too thick. I like my satire dry and subtle
But maybe that just reflects society. Society may just be a bit too thick, not dry or subtle.
Although apparently next week’s show includes their fake Tory MP thanking Jeremy Corbyn for giving the Tories electoral success for the next 10 years.
If they are Islam should they be saying oh my God????
Christ on a bike Collette. Cmon.
@Niall Lonergan – “Christ” indeed. ….I see what you did there…. :)
al-Lah means the God. It’s a bot like saying shouldn’t Jew’s say oh my Yahweh
Damned auto correct. *Bit *Jews
#OMG #Facepalm #Oldie
It’s dynamite
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