The chairman of the Public Accounts Committee is clearly frustrated at the pace at which the DIRT inquiry's recommendations are being implemented.
The Department of Finance came under most pressure at the reconvened session of the inquiry yesterday, with Mr Jim Mitchell stamping a "must do better" on its report card. But he was satisfied with the progress being made by the Revenue Commissioners.
The only good news from the Department of Finance was the appointment of a parliamentary law officer, as recommended by the PAC, although there was no hiding the committee's disappointment at the rank and powers assigned to the incumbent.
Mr Mitchell has championed the need for the appointment for many years, to provide legal advice to the parliament akin to the attorney general's role in advising the government.
In explaining the background to the appointment, the committee accused the Department of Finance's secretary-general, Mr John Hurley, of downgrading the job and watering down the PAC's recommendation.
Temperatures rose when the Department then let it be known that a key report recommending changes in the structure of the Revenue Commissioners had still not been completed and was unlikely to reach the committee until the end of next month.
A cautionary warning to the committee to temper its expectations on how much money could be seized by the Exchequer from dormant accounts was hardly music to their ears.
The Department said the primary focus should be for financial institutions to trace the beneficial owners of any funds lying unclaimed in dormant accounts and life assurance policies.
If a dormant account is taken to be one where there have been no transactions for 20 years, the Department suggests the figure could be as high as £55.5 million, whereas if the cut-off point is set at 10 years, the potential windfall to the Exchequer could be £116.5 million.
These figures may prove overoptimistic, depending on how successful the financial institutions are in finding beneficiaries, it cautioned.
There was further frustration for the committee when the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, which has responsibility for addressing recommendations on auditing and company law matters, said it needed two weeks more to finish its task.
The Central Bank governor, Mr Maurice O'Connell, assured the committee of the seriousness with which it had embraced its report. In future it will require an annual compliance report from the boards of these companies, which must also be signed by the auditors, to try to prevent the widescale tax abuse which brought about the DIRT inquiry.
And the Revenue Commissioners reported significant progress in its task of auditing and ultimately collecting DIRT arrears, interests and penalties from Irish financial institutions due on bogus non-resident accounts over 13 years.
The Revenue chairman, Mr Dermot Quigley, said that after some initial difficulties the Revenue was enthusiastically using its new powers to audit financial institutions and was on course to complete its audit in September. A final list of tax assessments for the various financial institutions will be presented to the PAC in December, and it will then turn its attention to collecting any tax liabilities from the individual account-holders.
Mr Quigley said the DIRT audit, along with investigating issues arising from the various tribunals, had fully stretched its resources and led to some fall-off in other aspects of its activities, notably audits. Its workload would be more evenly spread with the recruitment of up to 350 additional staff this year.
It issued a note of caution. In terms of the final tax take, the Revenue told the PAC to be mindful that many of the tax assessments could be challenged, while much of the funds in those accounts might have been regularised in the two tax amnesties. The PAC will be hoping for a more productive day when it meets again on July 11th.