AIB has flexed its muscles at the committee and shown that it is not beyond dishing the dirt on Revenue officials to defend the amnesty it believed it got in 1991.
The bank's senior counsel, Mr Dermot Gleeson, once again made his presence felt at yesterday's hearings, adopting a highly aggressive tone with the chairman, Mr Jim Mitchell, to express his objection to certain questions.
Much of the proceedings were taken up with evidence from AIB's former chairman, Mr Peter Sutherland, and former chief executive, Mr Gerry Scanlan. Both men said that to the best of their knowledge they had never been told in any formal way of a potential £100 million liability to DIRT in 1991, highlighted by the former internal auditor, Mr Tony Spollen. And the committee established that the issue had never been discussed at board level.
The reason for this was that AIB's senior executives simply didn't accept the £100 million figure which Mr Spollen raised. Mr Scanlan dismissed the £100 million potential liability, saying the basis for this calculation was "infantile" and "very childish".
AIB has gone to great pains to explain to the committee that there is no connection between Mr Spollen's determined efforts to bring the huge potential DIRT liability to the attention of the bank's senior management in 1991 and its decision to transfer him to a new position outside the internal audit department.
To support this claim, Mr Scanlan cited extracts from Mr Spollen's personnel file which detailed a series of protracted and difficult negotiations in response to the suggested transfer. It quickly became clear that Mr Scanlan and Mr Spollen did not enjoy a good working relationship and any communication between the two men on this subject was openly hostile.
Mr Scanlan was insistent that Mr Spollen's transfer should go ahead. As chief executive, he had the power to shuffle his management team as he saw fit and was not prepared to back down in response to Mr Spollen's protests. "In a sense it was his job or my job," he explained.
The transfer was, however, suspended just a few days later when Mr Scanlan learned that Mr Spollen was considering taking legal action against the group for unfair dismissal.
Mr Spollen's intentions in this regard were brought to Mr Scanlan's attention by Mr Sutherland, who was a lifelong friend of the former head of internal audit. The chairman stressed to Mr Scanlan the potential "embarrassment" such an action could cause for the bank. The chief executive then decided to put Mr Spollen's transfer on hold until the allegations he was making against the bank's executives were investigated and dealt with.
Mr Pat Rabbitte TD put it to Mr Scanlan that any disclosure of Mr Spollen's concerns in relation to DIRT at that time would have scuppered AIB's discussions with the Revenue on its liabilities in relation to bogus non-resident accounts.
Mr Scanlan insists the bank did not have any reliable estimate of its total exposure to DIRT on those accounts when its officials entered negotiations with the Revenue in 1991. Mr Rabbitte suggested it would be unusual for the Revenue to grant an amnesty blindly without having any knowledge of the extent of the tax it was prepared to write off.
AIB insists its tax officials secured an amnesty with the Revenue nonetheless, although it never received written confirmation of such an agreement.
The deal was brokered by two former Revenue officials who had moved to AIB, Mr Jimmy O'Mahony and Dr Donal de Buitleir. Mr Sutherland and Mr Scanlan said they were both fully prepared to accept the word of their in-house tax experts that they had indeed secured an amnesty and saw no need to seek a formal agreement with the Revenue. The committee will today hear evidence from Mr O'Mahony and Dr de Buitleir.
The bank is determined that the DIRT amnesty it believes was agreed will be upheld and seems prepared to do whatever it has to achieve that outcome.
Mr Scanlan took a pot-shot at the Revenue tax inspector, Mr Tony Mac Carthaigh, the man who had vigorously pursued the banks on bogus non-resident accounts, telling the committee he had been known to attend football matches at the bank's invitation.
Mr Mac Carthaigh rejected what he said was a "scurrilous" attempt by the bank to damage his good name, stating the only match he had attended courtesy of AIB had been almost eight years before the alleged amnesty. Mr Scanlan subsequently apologised for his remarks, but left the Revenue officials in no doubt but that they had a fight on their hands.