Those were dark times. By day, we manned the trenches and fought the good fight. When night fell, it was all I could do to keep sleep at bay. For with sleep would come the nightmares, peopled by the likes of George Redmond, Ray Burke, Bertie Ahern, and my great and good friend, former senator Don Lydon.

Their faces haunted my dreams in those dark days of reporting on the planning tribunal. I would wake in cold sweats from the recurring nightmare, in which I had transmogrified into Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, shaking one of the witnesses by their lapels, screaming, "you can't handle the truth".

The post-traumatic stress has abated now thanks to the counselling, but in recent days my anxiety levels shot up again. There is talk of another major inquiry. The purpose would be to look into how the banking crisis dragged the country into the state we're in. Could this mean a return to the land of tribunals? Is a monumental dig about to get under way again?

There is little prospect of ever returning to tribunal land, but those of us who lived there for any period just get into a bit of a state when the word 'inquiry' pops into public discourse. The prospect of an inquiry was raised by the governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, 10 days ago.

Honohan represents a breath of fresh air in the musty, staid interface between banking and politics. He arrived from the outside, carrying a mentality suffused with the basic logic and application that had been absent from regulatory affairs for over a decade. He is one of us, venturing into their lair.

The governor sees that something horrendous occurred that has had catastrophic effects for thousands of citizens, most of whom bear little or no responsibility for the mess.

He thinks we should find out how it happened, primarily with a view to ensuring it never happens again. All of this is basic stuff, which would already be under way if we lived in a democracy functioning along half-sane lines.

Unfortunately, we do things differently here. The business of inquiring into malfunctions within the state has been severely compromised. Tribunals are now a no-no. (We could well do with a swift inquiry into exactly how tribunals have been dragged into such disrepute, but that's for another day.)

Oireachtas inquiries have been largely neutered by the Supreme Court ruling in the Abbeylara case. That judgment effectively prevents an Oireachtas body from making adverse findings against individuals. It is a ruling that must be a godsend to lawyers, who would have feared that they might have been done out of lucrative business by politicians.

Constitutional rights were at stake in the Abbeylara judgment. The constitution can be manipulated and changed when dealing with issues like mandatory sentences and bail laws, both of which largely affect offenders drawn from the lower orders. When it comes to the reputations of the great and the good, the constitution is a sacred document that cannot be touched.

So a new way must be found for this inquiry. Pat Rabbitte is putting together a private member's bill on the matter, but the chances of it getting through are in the lap of the government.

One way or the other, the holding of an inquiry – preferably in public and by an Oireachtas committee – is vital to ensure that the past is put firmly on the record as a deterrent for the future. It should not be a witch-hunt, as we already know who the culprits are, but it must lay out clearly and concisely what went wrong.

Any inquiry would do well to use last Monday's Prime Time Investigates programme as a starting point. Oonagh Smyth's excellent report located exactly where the systemic failures occurred.

Central to the regulatory failure was the political culture, at the apex of which stood the great Charlie McCreevy who, the programme reported, acquired a fast-track loan of €1.6m from Michael 'Fingers' Fingleton on a property valued at €1.5m. The loan was unorthodox but not illegal. McCreevy, by the way, is on record as being contemptuous of the notion of tight regulation of banking.

Also putting in an appearance in the Prime Time programme was my great and good friend Don Lydon, who got a similarly unorthodox loan of €3m from Fingers at Irish Nationwide.

Back in the planning tribunal days, Don assured the inquiry that he did not accept bribes for planning in the same office where he conducted his psychology practice, which involved counselling ill patients on how to better themselves. Don also told the tribunal that he had wanted to be a member of Seanad Eireann since he was a child.

Oh what fun we would have listening to the evidence of the likes of McCreevy and Lydon, not to mention the brasher of the developers and the iconic Seánie Fitz. Those who were on the inside would be obliged to explain in front of the great unwashed why the Republic was run the way it was.

All that is really required to get things under way is the nod from Brian Cowen, who would undoubtedly feature prominently among the witnesses himself. Is he ready to act in the national interest?

Happy new year; let's hope it's a good one.

mclifford@tribune.ie