The Taoiseach has moved to support the Tanaiste over the investigation into the Ansbacher deposits. Mr Ahern said yesterday he believed convictions would result.
The Taoiseach said he wanted the public to be reassured that when the report of the High Court inspectors investigating the affair was complete, people guilty of serious offences would be clearly identified.
Mr Ahern said he had no doubt people named in the confidential report on the Ansbacher accounts prepared by Ms Harney's investigator, Mr Gerard Ryan, would be found guilty of serious offences.
"In the final report to the High Court, those people will have to be made clear to the Irish people," he said.
"In all of these inquiries I have no doubt that, in the round, people will be found guilty of serious offences," he added.
Yesterday Ms Harney reiterated her view that the 120 people named in Mr Ryan's report had questions to answer. She said all were involved in at least one of four ways: they "had deposits in Ansbacher Cayman, or they were the beneficiaries of a deposit there, or they were involved in a discretionary trust, or they had a back-to-back loan," she said.
"The evidence suggests that. There's very hard evidence in relation to a large number of the names; there's less evidence in relation to others. That's why people have to be spoken to, and spoken to under oath."
Ms Harney has resisted publication of the names. Yesterday the Labour Party finance spokesman, Mr Derek McDowell, said that the Tanaiste's comments on the culpability of people on the Ansbacher list could be potentially more prejudicial than simply publishing it. Public interest would best be served by publication, he said.
Yesterday the industrial group CRH, whose former chairman Mr Des Traynor ran an unlicensed bank from its headquarters, announced it was commissioning an independent review of its directors' compliance and disclosure requirements. This follows a detailed consideration of Mr Ryan's High Court affidavit which said a substantial number of its board members in 1987 "knew that an unlicensed bank was operating from its registered office".
In a statement yesterday following the company's board meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, the CRH chairman, Mr Tony Barry, said the company recognised the gravity of the allegations in the affidavit.
A company spokesman said he could not comment when asked for further details about the review of compliance and disclosure requirements.
"If it is established . . . that a bank or any illegal activity was operated from its non-executive chairman's office, CRH would deplore this as a most serious breach of trust by its former chairman," Mr Barry said yesterday.
He added that CRH "fully understands and greatly regrets the . . . disquiet and upset caused to employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers and members of the general public" by the allegations in the affidavit.
Last week Mr Barry said he had transferred funds into an account with Ansbacher or a related company, Hamilton Ross, but the money involved had been fully disclosed after-tax income.
CRH has already said it never "discussed or approved or knowingly permitted the carrying out of banking business" by Mr Traynor in its offices. The board yesterday restated its intention to co-operate fully with the inspectors appointed by the High Court.