There's every danger that any inquiry established by the current government, and contributed to voluntarily by the current financial establishment, would end up like those Iraq war enquiries over the water: a mix between stating the obvious and making it all sound like an innocent mistake.

Much better, I think, to unleash Inspectors appointed by the High Court into problem companies (e.g. Anglo Irish) and set up new American-style special prosecutors who have the skills, resources, motivation and - importantly - the political sanction to build up cases for the DPP. There are rules against retrospective legislation but none against new methods of investigating existing crimes.

Whatever about an inquiry though, that sort of radical change would require more than FG shuffling in to replace FF.

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Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

Little bit media stair may be...

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Another call has been made for an inquiry, this time by that well-known firebrand and scourge of the Establishment, eh, Colm McCarthy:
The Irish Economy Blog Archive What Kind of Banking Inquiry, and Why?

He makes some of the points I've been trying to get through to the heads-down-and-get-on-with-it brigade of Fianna Fáil:
There would be fiscal austerity right now even if the banks were tickety-boo, but the absence of a factual public narrative on the banking collapse is damaging the credibility of the fiscal adjustment programme.
Bank boards and bankers remain in situ with limited exceptions. The lack of contrition, given what has happened, fuels public anger and could damage the willingness to honour debts.
International capital markets have drawn their own conclusions about the extent of the fiscal cost, about the credibility of Irish regulatory authorities and about the probity of Irish business. The absence of a full narrative runs the risk of less favourable assessments than are actually warranted.

Of course it makes little sense for members of the current government to authorize an enquiry that reaches findings against them, or just shines a light on things they’d rather we move on from, going forward, like.

What might make sense is if the FF party dumps Cowen, presents Lenihan as the bright new face of the party and has him issue a Krushchev-style denunciation of the regime gone by: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/25/newsid_2703000/2703581.stm
(Then an enquiry could be on the cards, although one imagines it would focus on the banking collapse rather than the response to it.)

The Irish public might be f—king stupid enough to believe it.

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Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

Read between the lines here folks, the dodgy transfer to shore up Anglo's balance sheet did not happen by accident, the idea came from somewhere, I bet the order came from the very top - "don the green jersey lads".

Look, there is only on way to get to the truth, and that is a properly independent investigation.
The Tribunal system is not te way to go, as it is long - drawn out and expensive

Best way I can see is to follow Icelands example and hire an external expert

Iceland appointed Eva Joly, a Norwegian born French judge with an outstanding history investigating corruption by politicians and vested business interests.
Her work investigating corruption is impressive, taking on, among others, former minister Bernard Tapie and the bank Crédit Lyonnais.

Her most famous case was that of France’s leading oil company – Elf Aquitaine.
Despite death threats, she carried on the case to uncover several cases of fraud.

But getting an independent and open investigation here aint easy.
I know what the FF/Green response would be

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Anybody with these sort of credentials is the stuff of nighmares for the Fianna Fail party. And, of course, the owners of the Fianna Fail party and, by extension, cronies thereof, including the worst of the PDs.The guy is the picture wouldn't care.

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Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. Two cheeks, One arse.