Bank Inquiry "A Scam"

Minister for finance Brian Lenihan's outline plans for an inquiry into the banking crisis has been named a "scam" by the opposition.

In a detailed statement released yesterday, the Government finally relented to weeks of pressure to conduct an inquiry into the failings of the banking sector.

However within hours of its release by Mr Lenihan it has been branded a sham by the Labour Party, who claim the Government's amendments would see any inquiry being held in private with the Dáil excluded from the process.

Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore said: "This is public business. This is business that affects every single taxpayer in the country, people who will have to pay for years to come for the failings that happened in the banking system. The public are entitled to have this inquiry conducted in public so they can draw their own conclusions and see it carried out as a public exercise."

The statement from the Government said it went without saying that the worst financial crisis the country had ever experienced required an inquiry and that the Government fully recognised the public was entitled to a full examination of what went wrong in the banking system.

However, the plan contained no explicit stipulations that much of the investigation would be conducted in a public forum.

(DW/GK)