The whole issue of inquiries has been very much in vogue with much chatter over the weekend. The focus, however, has been on the wrong inquiries. It is quite clear that the toothless banking inquiry is not going to expose anything, except maybe a few politicians to a bit of badly needed publicity.

That is for you, Ruth.

It has dawned on many citizens now that the Oireachtas inquiry into banking has about as much chance of getting to the bottom of what happened in the banking sector as Billy Bunter would have in finding out who robbed the school tuckshop. It is a joke. Instead, maybe the Taoiseach will focus on a different inquiry, one which might have the chance of actually succeeding, if he had the will to set it up in an appropriate manner.

I refer to the statement yesterday by the broad cross-section of academics, NGOs and public figures which presented a cast-iron case for why a public inquiry into the policing of the Corrib gas project should be held. Everybody accepts that our mechanisms for Garda accountability have been found not to be fit for purpose. Is it not logical against this backdrop of one of the longest-running police operations in the history of the State, in an area deemed to be the most heavily policed in Europe, coincidentally in the Taoiseach's backyard, where more than 100 complaints to GSOC have been made, that the Taoiseach would agree this obviously should be the subject of an independent inquiry? Such an inquiry has been sought for a long time by national and international human rights campaigners such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders. The campaign yesterday outlined 22 reasons such an inquiry needs to take place, ranging from the lack of legality of arresting people without charge, protesters being hospitalised, phone tapping-----

What about the investment?

-----retired gardaí working for the IRMS and Shell and the fact that all of the regulatory and monitoring agencies have been demonstrably shown to have been subverted by Shell.

The €1 billion investment should be welcomed.

The question I need to ask the Taoiseach is whether he is aware of the meetings of the Shell committee of managing directors in London prior to the commencement of the Shell project when it discussed whether the company had sufficiently well-placed contacts in the Irish Government and among the Irish regulators, an instance which it said it would investigate further and which set the scene for everything else that followed? Is the Taoiseach aware of the continued police harassment and intimidation of the local community, including a very serious incident in Pollatomish the weekend before last?

Thank you.

If the Taoiseach is not aware of these instances, will he make himself aware of them and visit the residents, his constituents, and tell them how he reconciles this with his previous statements that we are on the cusp of a new Garda regime?

I am glad to note the political policy regulatory structures on banking governance will be examined by the Oireachtas committee free of any direction from the Government-----

That is some U-turn in a week. Fair play to the Taoiseach.

Can we deal with one topic please?

Will the Taoiseach instruct seven or nine of them not to take the Whip?

The Taoiseach came in here last week and told us something different.

-----free of any instruction from the Government and free to do as an Oireachtas committee can do under the new Act-----

It is an act all right. It is a double act.

An act of pirouetting at its best.

-----which is to make its own determination of its terms of reference regarding who it should examine and call, and the period it should apply. I take scant notice of the comment from the side by Deputy Martin who was involved-----

I made the comment.

It was Deputy Dooley who made the comment.

-----in a decision where there was a private inquiry held into banking with a specific time limit, admittedly carried out by a very competent person-----

Uisce faoi thalamh now.

-----who conducted 140 interviews. It was a time-constrained private banking inquiry. It is only appropriate that the Oireachtas committee under the new inquiries Act should be enabled to hold a public inquiry-----

You should have put Deputy Paul Kehoe on it.

Are there time constraints on it?

There is an enforced Government majority.

-----into the issues of governance, regulatory authorities and policy positions.

What topic are we dealing with?

I am quite sure the members of the committee will play their full part in what is a matter of real substance and interest to the Irish people, that this should never happen again.

Ask the two Senators to step back.

Do not worry, Joe will sort it out.