Inquiring, Recording and Reporting': Can the Banking Inquiry Deliver Practical Reforms of Oireachtas Oversight of Government?

• Author: Dr. Fiona Donson
• Position: Lecturer in Law, School of Law University College Cork
• Pages: 1-6

[2015] COLR

1

‘INQUIRING, RECORDING AND REPORTING’: CAN THE BANKING INQUIRY

DELIVER PRACTICAL REFORMS OF OIREACHTAS OVERSIGHT OF

GOVERNMENT?

Dr Fiona Donson

Dear Editor,

In the aftermath of the banking crisis the question of how we develop effective oversight

systems for our administrative state stands as an essential, overarching, and yet largely

unresolved question. While the issue is posed as a single question, in fact it is a series of

questions which require critical examination of the many diverse parts of our public sector

and reflect the multiple methods of delivering administrative justice – whether through the

operation of judicial review in the High Court or complaints to the Ombudsman. However, I

wish to focus in this letter on a central and undervalued accountability mechanism in the Irish

state, that of the Oireachtas.

Article 28.4.1° of the Constitution clearly acknowledges the role of the Oireachtas in stating

that the “Government shall be responsible to Dáil Éireann”. This reflects the generally

accepted ideal that administrative decision-making at central level should be subject to

Parliamentary oversight. However, in practice the Oireachtas has been inadequate in this

regard. That weakness flows in part from a failure within the Constitution to support this

fundamental accountability role with clear provisions setting out the machinery by which is

can be translated into practice.

Further problems flow from the internal culture of the Oireachtas, not least the dominance of

party politics and the related control of the whip system. Party loyalty is not peculiar to our