The Oireachtas Banking Inquiry has put back its deadline to agree a report after a lengthy meeting to resolve difficulties ended just before midnight last night.
The new schedule was described by members as extremely tight, with some now expressing doubts as to whether the report can ultimately be published.
Weary committee members finished their discussions late last night after they had failed to meet a self imposed deadline that would have given them a week’s leeway to meet the legal requirement of publishing by 28 January next.
Their new buffer is just 24 hours, leaving their work very vulnerable to any further hitch.
One senior member noted that the committee has yet to meet any of its targets so the possibility of failure is very real.
Members and staff will now find themselves working through the Christmas holiday.
The committee is now aiming to agree a draft along with an executive summary on Friday, to work through the weekend and sign off on Sunday.
The report then has to be vetted by a senior counsel, a process that will take a number of days.
It has to go to interested parties by midweek at the latest if the new publication deadline of 27 January is to be met.
That is 24 hours before time runs out legally, so any delay or hitch could prove fatal to the work of the inquiry which has cost some €5 million to date.
Sinn Féin's finance spokesperson and Banking Inquiry member, Pearse Doherty has said that the committee is determined to publish the report by its deadline.
He told RTÉ's News At One that the committee hope to have the entire report signed off on by next Thursday.
Deputy Doherty said that it is hoped the amendments will be agreed, saying the committee want to get the report across the board.
He said: "Everyone is trying to facilitate everybody else, knowing that this is going to be a compromised document. It wouldn't be the document I would write."
Fianna Fáil's finance spokesperson and inquiry committee member, Michael McGrath, said he still believes a credible report can be published by the committee.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr McGrath said it remains an extremely challenging prospect and said there are risks such as publishing so close to the deadline of 28 January.
"The draft that we are considering is in the best state that it has been, thus far. But it does require further work and all of the members are engaging in that process.
“We are all going to be submitting further formal amendments over the course of today and we are going to meet tomorrow to discuss and decide upon those amendments and into the weekend if necessary, with a view to agreeing a draft report which will then need to be legally proofed."
He said the establishment of an Oireachtas inquiry in the final year of a government was always going to be fraught with risk, but, he said he still believes the report can be salvaged.
He said he did not believe that the report had been undermined thus far and it would still be a credible report once published.
