Fianna Fáil tax policy helped inflate an unsustainable property bubble. Lax regulatory oversight made a devastating collapse almost inevitable. Going for the nuclear option, the blanket bank guarantee ensured that the cost of fixing our broken banks could not be contained.

Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide were at the heart of the banking collapse. Each of these institutions became poster banks for Celtic Tiger greed, racking up huge profits on the back of unsustainable expansion.
Where Anglo and Nationwide led, greedy bank bosses in other institutions, including our long-standing and systemically important banks, Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland, followed. Understandably, Fianna Fáil is reluctant to expose to the public gaze the toxic triangle of bankers, developers and their own members.

Under public and political pressure, however, the Taoiseach was dragged kicking and screaming to agreeing to hold an enquiry, but it falls well short of what the country needs.

The Labour Party has put before the Dáil a comprehensive proposal for an enquiry which would be largely overseen and directed by a Dáil committee. This enquiry would be modelled on the DIRT enquiry, overseen and managed by a Dáil committee, which revolutionised tax compliance in Ireland and cost only £1m to conduct.

Labour's proposal for a banking enquiry, overseen by a special Dáil committee, was one which seemed to gain a significant amount of cross-party support over Christmas and early 2010, even from the Green Party. In the end, however, Fianna Fáil substituted Labour's proposal with a three stage enquiry process, largely behind closed doors.

Fianna Fáil's proposal is to have a three stage enquiry covering events up to September 2008, the period immediately before the bank guarantee.

• Stage 1: The new Central Bank Governor, Professor Patrick Honohan, is to draw up a preliminary report on the performance of the Central Bank and Financial Regulator up to September 2008.
• Stage 2: A preliminary report is also to be prepared by two independent experts, Klaus Regling and Max Watson, on why our banks crashed. Both have worked with the EU Commission and the IMF.
• Stage 3: Following the completion of these preliminary reports, by end May 2010, a Statutory Commission of Investigation is to be established under the auspices of another independent expert to prepare within six months a comprehensive report on events leading to the banking crisis.

Essentially, what we will have is a system of private enquiries with no public element at the first two stages and no government commitment to a strong public element to the Commission of Investigation. In effect, these investigations will take place behind closed doors with Fianna Fáil politicians, senior civil servants and bankers safe from the prying eyes of the ordinary worker and taxpayer. The role of the Oireachtas is likely to be limited to committee discussion of the terms of reference of the various enquiries and Dáil debates on the completed reports.

Public enquiries are a common and vital ingredient of democratic practice. One of the hallmarks of a democratic society is the willingness to have open investigations. Dictatorships cover up mistakes and failures. Democracies conduct open investigations because democracies learn from mistakes and failures and put new practices in place. Many great reforms in the past have come from open enquiries. A full open enquiry could be a valuable instrument to enable us to prepare the finance industry for reforms.

We need a strong public dimension to any public enquiry in Ireland for three reasons:

• to restore our reputation nationally and internationally for financial regulation and good governance;
• to make those responsible for the crash, no matter how eminent, accountable to the people of Ireland who are picking up the tab.
• to learn lessons from past mistakes so that we can reconstruct a sound banking system which supports the flow of credit in the economy.