Clean sweep in DIRT inquiry

When it was set up, Jim Mitchell expressed the hope that the inquiry by the Dail's Committee of Public Accounts into DIRT evasion by banks and building societies would break new ground. The committee has yet to report but already it can congratulate itself on breaking new ground in a host of areas.

First, it has been, by a distance, the most efficient and least expensive of all such tribunal-type investigations to date. Whether its brief tenure has much to do with the absence, by and large, of the serried ranks of the legal profession is a moot point and one that the public can decide at its leisure.

Second, it stands a reasonable chance of being self-financing in that, whatever the opposing arguments, it seems certain a large amount of back-tax owing by the banks and building societies under DIRT provisions will now be forthcoming.

Third, and somewhat related, is that, unlike so many other inquiries, it has already succeeded to a degree in that the financial institutions have been forced to admit wrong - to whatever degree - and therefore the inquiry will achieve something concrete by way of restitution.

Finally, and maybe most welcome of all, it has forced the financial institutions and the Revenue to get their houses in order, including the proper vetting of the former by the latter.

And all this before the report comes out in December.