Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald has been sharply criticised by two members of the Public Accounts Committee for revealing names of those alleged to have Ansbacher accounts in the Dáil yesterday.
Fine Gael Deputy John Deasy accused Ms McDonald of using the committee for her own political ends and told her to stop.
He said she had given the impression in the Dáil that the committee was not able to deal with the issues.
Mr Deasy said they had received legal advice on two options available to them and the committee had not yet decided on the second option, but had agreed as a committee to hear from Revenue first.
Labour TD Joe Costelloe also said it was "totally untrue to say we had come to the end of the road and we couldn't proceed any further."
Ms McDonald defended her decision to reveal the names saying the legal advice was that they would could only deal with the matters in very narrow confines.
She said the dossier contained allegations of tax evasions; allegations of improper and corrupt payments; then a narrative of political obstruction and blockage.
She said the legal advice made it clear it was beyond remit of committee.
Mary Lou McDonald criticised by PAC members for revealing names of those alleged to have Ansbacher accounts
Last night, former tánaiste Mary Harney denied closing down an inquiry into the tax evasion scheme to avoid political embarrassment.
Ms McDonald has written to Taoiseach Enda Kenny demanding an inquiry into claims that the inquiry into tax evasion was shut down by Ms Harney when Des O'Malley's name emerged.
He and the others named have denied any involvement.
The Sinn Féin claim was emphatically rejected by Ms Harney last night, when she said the authorised officer, Gerard Ryan, was given ample time to complete his report.
The PAC's legal advice is that it cannot pursue allegations against individuals.
Ms McDonald is a member of the PAC, but her call for a full inquiry is unlikely to be heeded by the Government.
Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners Josephine Feehily has told the PAC that all the authorised officer's material referred to Revenue by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation was fully examined and followed up.
Since the start of the Ansbacher investigation 26 High Court orders have been obtained against financial institutions and third-parties and Revenue has received over 300,000 documents in the course of the inquiry, she said.
Ms Feehily told the committee that all of this information has been examined and followed up and is included in the cases investigated by the Ansbacher Project Team.
She said the investigations and examinations identified some 289 cases; 283 cases have been finalised.
Of the remaining six, five have made payments on account and four are under appeal.
€113m in tax, interest and penalties has been yielded from 138 finalised cases, 58 significant settlements have been published in the quarterly tax defaulters list and are on the public record generally with the designation 'Ansbacher'.
She said that it is important from a fairness perspective to put on record that although a person may be named in the Ansbacher reports, that in itself, is not proof of tax evasion.
Revenue actively considered prosecution under the Taxes Acts in a number of cases, she said.
However, an essential element for a successful criminal prosecution is the availability of relevant original documents and that element was largely missing.
She said she is satisfied that Revenue made full and appropriate use of the information received from the authorised officer's reports, the High Court inspectors' report and its underlying documents.
Revenue allocated and maintained a significant experienced investigative resource in a dedicated project team.
Revenue made extensive use of legislative powers to seek books and records, and where these powers did not achieve success they went to the High Court to progress the investigation and overcome blockages.
She said that the lessons learned from the investigation have been important in the success of other related projects, in developing new law and supporting enhanced investigative powers.
She said the final tranche of papers had come to her in 2011, as it was during her term as chairman.
Ms Feehily said she had discussed it with an officer who had examined it and there was nothing in the final dossier that they did not already have.
She said helpful meetings were held with the official, but she insisted that "when we got information. We followed it up to where it took us. We followed it through."
Asked by Deputy Ross what was the origin of the money was it "hot money"?
Ms Feehily said the accounts were "wealthy people sheltering wealth" but she could not go any further.
Ms Feehily later said that Revenue was not in favour of tax amnesties.
She was responding to questions from Mr Deasy about the tax amnesty of 1993, which 20 Ansbacher account holders availed of.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
McDonald accused of using PAC for political ends
Dengan url
http://newsdeadlineup.blogspot.com/2014/12/mcdonald-accused-of-using-pac-for.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
McDonald accused of using PAC for political ends
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
McDonald accused of using PAC for political ends
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar