The Abbeylara subcommittee (ASC) clearly felt perfectly free to carry out a thorough reinvestigation of the Abbeylara incident and come up with their own findings as to what happened and who was to blame, Mr Justice Geoghegan said.
It did not see itself in any different position from a tribunal.
All parties agreed that there was no such express power in the Constitution. There were four reasons why there was also no inherent or implied power in Oireachtas committees to make fact finding inquiries leading to formal findings or opinions as to culpability of named or identifiable individuals.
1) With the possible exception of the US Congress, such powers in other parliaments derive directly or indirectly from traditional powers in the British Houses of Parliament, the historical basis of which was inconsistent with the principle of the separation of powers in the Irish Constitution.
2) The public discredit of parliamentary inquiries when the Constitution was enacted.
3) The obligations under Article 40.3.2 of the Constitution that the State should, by its laws, protect "as best it may" from unjust attack the good name of every citizen.
The claimed inherent power was unnecessary given that the known and respected machinery for an independent non-political investigation of matters of public concern existed under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921.
4) Given the inherent likelihood of structural bias, or the immense practical difficulties of avoiding objective bias, coupled with the fact such bias issues would be justiciable in the course, it would seem unreal to suggest that on some purely theoretical basis the claimed inherent power must be read in the Constitution.