Harney may institute investigation of bank

The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, will consider appointing an official to investigate the National Irish Bank under the Companies Acts.

Ms Harney yesterday described the allegations concerning the bank as "very disturbing". She said she would wait until she was fully appraised of the facts but she "may have to act under the Companies Acts".

Ms Harney has the power to appoint an authorised officer or an inspector to look into the affairs of companies which may have broken company law, including the defrauding of creditors or of the creditors of others. The Revenue Commissioners are creditors.

She said a culture existed whereby rich people believed they could evade or avoid paying tax. This was "not good enough", the Tanaiste said.

The leader of the Labour Party, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said they would be calling on the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, to make a full statement on the matter to the Dail when it resumes on Wednesday.

He called on the Fianna Fail deputy, Ms Beverly Cooper Flynn, to clarify the nature of the work she did when an employee of NIB "and in particular whether she was involved in the sale of the investment scheme currently the subject of the Revenue Commissioners investigation".

Mr Quinn said there appeared to be evidence the bank had "colluded in tax evasion" through the operation of the Clerical Medical International off-shore investment bonds.

A Fianna Fail spokesman said Ms Cooper Flynn had said she was a former employee of NIB and as such was precluded from discussing bank business. Any such questions were a matter for the NIB. Mr Quinn's comments amounted to "cheap politicking".

The Fine Gael finance spokesman, Mr Michael Noonan, speaking on RTE Radio 1, said he was "surprised" that the Revenue Commissioners were not aware of the matters now being examined. He would suggest that officers from the Revenue Commissioners investigations section be invited to come before the Oireachtas Finance Committee so they could be asked whether they felt they had sufficient resources and powers to do their job.

He said the "primary interest must be that compliant tax-payers are not aggrevated to the extent that they are no longer compliant". There was the feeling in the country that people who could afford it could get advice on how to evade or avoid tax.

Any individuals who were found to have evaded paying tax should be "gone after and made to pay the tax they owe". If NIB was "compliant in assisting evasion" then directors and senior managers should be pursued in accordance with the existing provisions of the law.

Asked about Ms Cooper-Flynn, Mr Noonan said her name would not be in the media if she did not come from a political family. She had not been in a position in the bank to shape or form the financial package now being examined by the Revenue Commissioners.

Mr Noonan said that following the second tax amnesty and the granting of additional powers to the Revenue Commissioners, he had thought that the "culture of tax evasion" had changed.

Ms Cooper-Flynn, who worked in the financial advice and services division of NIB before her election as a Fianna Fail TD for Mayo last June, could not be contacted yesterday.

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