Seán Ryan
Ceist:53 Mr. S. Ryan asked the Minister for Finance the action his Department has taken arising from the report of the Ansbacher inspectors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25569/02]
Other Questions. - Ansbacher Report.
My Department has been studying the report of the Ansbacher inspectors which was published in July. The parts of the report of particular concern to my Department relate to taxation matters, exchange control and the Central Bank. When this examination has been fully completed, consideration will be given to further measures that may be needed. In the interim, the Deputy will be aware that I intend to introduce a Committee Stage amendment to the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland Bill, 2002, to impose an obligation on the bank to report to the Revenue Commissioners any information that leads it to suspect that a criminal offence of tax evasion may have been committed by a supervised financial institution. The bank will also be obliged to report to the Revenue Commissioners any failure by a financial institution to report suspected cases of money laundering of the proceeds of tax evasion.
A second Bill, which has already been the subject of a public consultation process, will oblige the directors of financial institutions to certify each year that the institution is fully compliant with all of its statutory obligations. Auditors of these institutions will have to review the directors' compliance statement and inform the directors and the new single financial regulator if they are not satisfied that it is accurate. The new regu lator will also have a general right of oversight of corporate governance standards in institutions under its supervision. I expect to be in a position to present this Bill to the House in the first half of next year. The Revenue Commissioners have recently initiated discussions with the tax authorities of the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey concerning tax information exchange agreements between Ireland and these states. As I already indicated to the Dáil, the Revenue Commissioners are pursuing individual Ansbacher cases.
Why is it taking so long to deal with this matter? The compliant taxpayer is scandalised by what has gone on in relation to Ansbacher accounts and it is a continuing scandal that the recent reports of income we discussed earlier should show so few taxpayers declaring incomes of more than €100,000. Part of the reason for this is the tax shelters built by the Minister for Finance on very deep foundations, but it is mainly that schemes such as Ansbacher, although most accountants could tell the Minister of similar schemes in operation—
I must ask the Deputy to put her supplementary question. Statements are not in order at Question Time.
I am asking the Minister why the report is taking so long to be dealt with by his Department. He prides himself on the efficiency of his Department. Why is it taking so long for these results to appear?
The Revenue Commissioners are pursuing these cases. More than €20 million has been received to date, mostly by way of payment on section 59 cases. The Revenue team has inquired into 289 cases to date and six of these have included settlements. The total consists of 179 cases named by the authorised office of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and 110 similar cases discovered by Revenue. Most of these are still under consideration. Apart from these disclosed entities there are some 700 other connected entities on which the Revenue investigators are assembling information. I considerably increased the powers of the Revenue Commissioners in 1999. A special team in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners was dedicated to following up the Ansbacher inspectors' report and it is operating thoroughly and efficiently. The Deputy knows a little about this area, as I do. This is very painstaking work and they are finding it difficult to go back over so many years, but there is a full team involved and it is making progress.
One of the Minister's wise men, who is currently reporting to him on the economy, famously said, in his previous capacity, that there was no pot of gold in relation to underpaid or unpaid income taxes. Ordinary, compliant taxpayers are outraged that it is taking this Government, now in its sixth year in office, so long to come to terms with the litany of offshore schemes and tax avoidance mechanisms which are only available to the very rich and reduce by large amounts the amount of money available for necessary services. What additional resources and IT facilities has he supplied to the Revenue Commissioners to expedite these investigations?
One of the findings of the Ansbacher report was that investigations conducted by the Central Bank in relation to financial institutions operating schemes such as Ansbacher did not seem to be properly acted on. Is he satisfied that we now have adequate regulation to ensure that no other such schemes have been or are in existence?
As I said in my reply, I am introducing a Committee Stage amendment to the Central Bank Bill which will allow it to give information to the Revenue Commissioners if it unearths anything relating to tax evasion in the course of its operations. Criticisms of the Central Bank in the past were ill-founded because the previous legislation specifically precluded the Central Bank from giving that information to anybody. That will remain the case until I change the law in the Central Bank Bill.
Over the past five years, while Deputy Burton was temporarily absent from the House, any requests from the Revenue Commissioners for additional resources were granted by me. This was documented in many replies to the House.
Written Answers follow Adjournment Debate.