The DIRT inquiry is to proceed with its investigations, despite the revelation that one of the members of the sub-committee benefited from a £20,000 interest write-off from the State-owned ACC.
The committee chairman, Mr Jim Mitchell, said he saw "no cause to be embarrassed" about the revelations concerning Mr Bernard Durkan. He said he was confident his Fine Gael colleague had not been compromised and would continue to serve on the sub-committee.
Mr Durkan said he had a job to do and there was no question of him standing aside for the investigation. He confirmed he no longer banked with ACC. He said he had asked all financial institutions giving evidence at the inquiry "hard questions".
Last night an ACC spokesman said the bank would not be carrying out any inquiry as to how Mr Durkan's private financial affairs were made public. He said that "it would be difficult to trace but the bank did not believe the information came from within ACC".
The ACC settlement was negotiated on Mr Durkan's behalf by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy. At the time of the settlement, Mr McCreevy was a practising accountant in Co Kildare and a Fianna Fail backbencher. In May and June 1991, the ACC agreed to write off interest of almost £20,000 on loans which Mr Durkan had with the bank.
The ACC contacted Mr McCreevy last Thursday, in his capacity as shareholder in the State-owned bank, about the write-off. The Minister immediately informed Mr Mitchell, who said yesterday that he was "puzzled by the import of the message".
Mr Durkan and the other committee members had previously signed a declaration indicating they had no conflict of interest with any financial institution to appear before the inquiry.
It is understood the inquiry's legal team had sought information from each member on bank accounts, outstanding debts and any shareholdings held in any of the companies involved in the inquiry.
A committee source said last night the legal team "gave the thumbs-up to each member, including Bernard Durkan". The source said "the screening process was designed to circumvent any possibility of this type of eventuality".
Mr Mitchell said his understanding was that ACC "were not making an issue" of the Durkan write-off. He added that the media possibly "should be asking questions elsewhere because if there was any wrongdoing, it is not in the committee".
Senior executives from ACC are due to give evidence at the inquiry to clarify outstanding issues from last week's hearing when the committee heard that the bank owed £17.5 million in unpaid DIRT.
Mr John Hogan, a managing partner with ACC's external auditor Ernst and Young, told the committee the £17.5 million was "a substantial proportion" of the bank's worth in 1992. That figure did not allow for potential interest and penalties.