Banking inquiry can scrutinise previously unreleased Cabinet documents

SINN FÉIN Finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty has said legal advice that around 120 documents and papers relating to the 2008 blanket bank guarantee will be released and made available for scrutiny by the banking inquiry is a very positive development.

Speaking to An Phoblacht at Leinster House the Donegal TD said:

"It's been a positive outcome that all of the papers leading to the Cabinet meeting [on 20 September 2008], all the material that was provided, will be open to scrutiny by the banking inquiry. What will be off-bounds is the discussions of the Minister's themselves."

Previous attempts to secure the documents via Freedom of Information requests were denied.

TDs and Senators will be restricted from inquiring into what was said during the 30 minute Cabinet meeting on 30 September 2008 that led to the Fianna Fáil and Green Party government deciding to issue a blanket guarantee of the Irish banking system. This is due to constitutional confidentiality, which Pearse Doherty says wall already known.

“The only body that can have a limited lifting of Cabinet confidentiality would be a tribunal which we obviously aren't,” he said.

The banking inquiry is tasked with investigating the State's banking collapse and is composed of four senators and seven TDs, including Pearse Doherty. It held its first meeting on Friday to discuss the process of setting out the inquiry's scope, duration, format and also necessary resources.

It will begin gathering and analysing information in the next few months and oral hearings are expected to begin next spring.