As many as 50 support staff will be engaged for the upcoming Oireachtas banking inquiry, it has emerged. The budget for the investigation will roughly €5 million, necessitating a supplementary estimate within the current allocation for the Oireachtas.
As laborious preparations for the investigation advance, there is considerable speculation in Leinster House as to which TDs might sit on the inquiry.
Labour TD Ciarán Lynch, chairman of the finance committee, is the clear favourite to chair the inquiry, which is likely to be undertaken by a new committee set up for that purpose.
The committee’s composition will reflect the relative strength of the parties in the Oireachtas.
Names in contention include Fine Gael TDs Kieran O'Donnell and Áine Collins, Labour TD Michael McNamara and Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath. There will also be a Sinn Féin representative and a TD from the technical group.
A staffing requirement "in the range of 50" was mentioned by acting clerk of the Dáil Peter Finnegan in a presentation to the Fine Gael parliamentary party on Wednesday evening. Mr Finnegan will brief the other parties or groups in coming weeks.
“This is a major undertaking,” said an Oireachtas spokeswoman of the inquiry. The reference to 50 staff was a “ballpark” figure, she added. “Until we know what the terms of reference are, we won’t be able to quantify it.”
Any new staff such as parliamentary reporters, who transcribe the inquiry proceedings word for word, will be engaged on fixed-term temporary contracts only when public hearings begin.
There will also be a need for solicitors, barristers, forensic accountants, experts on banking and financial regulation and economists. Many of these will be engaged from the outset, given the necessity for significant “scoping” work before public hearings.
The need for additional resources reflects the fact that the work of other committees will continue during the banking investigation, the Oireachtas spokeswoman said.
The next phase of preparations will be managed by the Dáil committee on procedures and privileges, which oversees the work of the house. Work is under way for it to adopt protocols and procedures for the management of hearings and arrangements for media.
It will be open to any other Oireachtas committee to apply or make a bid to the committee to execute the inquiry.
However, the expectation is that the investigation will be carried out by an ad hoc committee drawn from the Dáil. It will fall to the committee itself to draw up its exact terms of reference.
