I also express my revulsion at what I saw last night on the "RTE Investigates" unit programme. While it was sickening, I cannot honestly say I am hugely surprised. The culture of non-compliance and the absence of effective enforcement ensures an utter lack of transparency in corporate and political life. It is a system that the public instinctively mistrusts. We have had the banking inquiry, the Cregan inquiry, the Fennelly inquiry and the Moriarty tribunal. Round and round we go, and we will keep doing that until the penny drops. Unless we implement an effective and modern system with real consequences, nothing will change.

The lack of consequences drives people nuts. The refrain is that "Nothing ever changes" or "Nothing ever happens and there are no consequences". I hear that over and over again. I do not know how many times I have heard people say to me, over the past year in particular, that they genuinely expected a change after 2011 when the Taoiseach promised them a democratic revolution and that he would end the toxic political culture. Things have not changed and we saw that last night.

The Taoiseach wrote to me last Friday regarding the problems with the Cregan inquiry, the investigation into IBRC and transactions involving Siteserv and Topaz, which was in the news recently. With respect, the letter appears to kick these issues to touch given that the measures require emergency legislation which does not appear to be on the agenda, at least this side of a general election. In the same way, the legislation to tackle corruption like that seen on the "RTE Investigates" programme last night has been put beyond the general election. The story never changes. There are a lot of words, but what we need is action.

In recent days Topaz was sold at a significant profit by the person who purchased it at a significant discount from IBRC, the same person who acquired Siteserv from IBRC at a significant discount. At the same time he was one of the biggest debtors of IBRC. Both of these transactions were flagged by Department officials as being included in the six large transactions about which the Department had serious concerns in terms of the poor quality of decisions made by the board of IBRC.

Given that the Mahon tribunal in 2012 found endemic and systemic corruption in political life and the Moriarty tribunal in 2011 was critical of the political culture and clandestine donations, it is hard to be shocked by last night's television programme. When are we going to accept that a new regime is required to tackle corruption in Irish life? The subject of today's Private Members' motion is an anti-corruption agency. It is a document published by the Social Democrats which I sent to the Taoiseach last week. It will be very interesting to see whether the motion is agreed or an amendment is passed. It proposes the kind of system that is in place in other countries where corruption has been identified and where there has been a comprehensive response to it. I urge the Taoiseach to read the paper with a view to accepting the proposal.

The situation that arose in respect of the case mentioned by the Deputy happened in the House. To define a response to it, when the entire Oireachtas wanted an answer to the question, and following a case made by quite a number of Deputies, a facility was put in place. Mr. Justice Cregan made his determination in respect of particular aspects of that. I am as open to new ideas as anybody else, and I look forward to hearing the contributions from Deputy Murphy and others today.

We would all like to think we could have an immediate answer to an issue that is raised. If somebody in the House makes a comment, statement or allegation, as the case may be, which is a matter of public interest or concern, to prove it is not that simple. It is an easy thing to make a statement, but to find a facility to have it proven is the question. The Deputy put forward her views and I look forward to hearing her contribution to the Private Members' debate.

The Bill I mentioned to Deputy Adams is one that will bring absolute independence to a regulator. It will have the authority to oversee processes to evaluate and investigate issues that may arise in the course of any of the areas I mentioned. It will also include the current facilities that are completely independent, such as the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Criminal Assets Bureau, the fraud squad and so on. The Government condemns all instances of corruption, anti-competitive behaviour, breaches of ethics legislation, breaches of the Companies Acts and all other forms of white-collar crime.

I recognise there is a need for a strong public standards legislation system and to prevent wrongdoing on behalf of elected or public officials.

The Ombudsman (Amendment) Act 2012, the Protected Disclosures Act 2014, the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015, the Freedom of Information Act 2014 and the major overhaul of the Companies Act 2014 were major pieces of legislation to put in place objectivity and a standard by which proper business should be conducted. The amalgamation of the Competition Authority and the National Consumer Agency into the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission was also a worthy advance. Quite a number of improvements have been made to legislation enabling the investigation into, and prosecution of, white collar crime, which was occasioned by the Criminal Justice Act 2011. I hope the improvements in respect of the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal dealing with unethical and corrupt behaviour will come to the Government next week. They will be introduced in the forthcoming public sector standards Bill and the criminal justice (corruption) Bill.

All of these are areas that cover particular sectors and they are in the interests of having transparency, accountability, confidence and trust. As I said, I look forward to hearing the presentations and contributions from the Deputy and her colleagues, but we need a system which is able to provide answers to questions, given that we went on a particular route arising from legitimate queries and questions from people. It is never as easy to find and prove an answer as it is to make a comment or give a piece of information to the House.

The Taoiseach listed much legislation, but what we have is a fragmented response to enforcement. It is fairly toothless and this keeps on happening. The Moriarty and Mahon tribunals combined cost more than €200 million, and at the same time they did not flag a response or produce an organisation that is capable of dealing with it. The official line on the Moriarty tribunal is that the Government is waiting for guidance from the DPP on whether to proceed with a full investigation, but the Statute of Limitations runs out next year. This is the type of thing that absolutely demoralises people.

A question please, thank you.

It is one thing to have legislation, but we need an agency with teeth that can operate across sectors and have a cross-sectoral response. This is what we propose. Will the Taoiseach accept the proposal this evening? Given that tomorrow is international anti-corruption day, the revelations last night on RTE and the ongoing unsatisfactory arrangement we have, the response to the proposal we will table will be very closely scrutinised.

I share Deputy Murphy's view on corruption, unethical behaviour and corrupt activities. In the State we have completely independent operations with the fraud squad, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Garda and CAB, which has brought so many people before the courts with a serious amount of money recovered for the taxpayer. Everybody can agree we do not want to see a situation whereby we continue to set up tribunals, such as the experiences we have had over many years, with an enormous cost to the public taxpayer. People tend to forget these things over a period of years. We have Oireachtas inquiries, commissions of investigations and tribunals of inquiry. The recommendations arising from the commission of investigation into unfair activities in respect of write-offs of more than €10 million require further consideration and I expect to meet the leaders of the various parties about this.

Thank you.

I am willing to hear new ideas, but the list of legislation put in place has gone a great length to providing accountability and transparency. Deputy Shortall may shake her head, but I will be happy to hear her contribution about the nature of what she speaks about. Everybody wants to stand over having answers to these issues and prevention if it is at all humanly possible. It will be an interesting debate. The Minister of Justice and Equality will take it for the Government and will set out the work that has been done and what is in place, with more to follow in respect of the independent regulator and the anti-corruption bill.