The Minister for Finance had been assured earlier this year that the Revenue Commissioners were investigating the alleged non-payment of DIRT tax on bogus nonresident bank accounts, the Dail was told.

The Minister of State for Finance, Mr Martin Cullen, was asked by the Fine Gael deputy leader, Mrs Nora Owen, if the Minister had a discussion with the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners and what information the Minister had received when revelations about the practice first appeared in the Sunday Independent last April.

Mr Cullen said: "Clearly, at that time there was contact with the Revenue Commissioners, and the Department and the Minister were assured that they were investigating the matters fully."

He added that he had already stated that the Revenue Commissioners had already initiated an investigation.

He continued that there was an ongoing investigation not alone into the institution referred to in Magill magazine but into the full range of the banking institutions.

"Questions of a very definitive and serious nature are being raised with those institutions by the Revenue Commissioners and answers are being sought. The full extent of the picture is obviously not clear yet."

Mr Cullen said that any settlements would be made public.

The Labour spokesman on finance, Mr Derek McDowell, asked if the Minister of State was aware of any other investigations which were continuing, or of other settlements which had been made.

Mr Cullen said that what the Government was aware of was what the Minister for Finance had stated some time ago: there was an investigation by the Revenue Commissioners into these matters.

"As I understand it, within the Revenue Commissioners these investigations are ongoing."

Mr Jim Mitchell (FG, Dublin Central) said that it was not possible to get information from the Revenue Commissioners because of a confidentiality clause. Given that it would not be possible to bring to account the financial institutions, would the Government consider a further tribunal to deal with the matter?

Mr Cullen said that the Revenue Commissioners worked on the basis of being independent. "That underpins in Irish tax law how we operate our system in this country."

Asked by Mr Pat Rabbitte (DL, Dublin South West) if they could be sure that the 1993 tax amnesty was not applied in the case referred to in Magill, Mr Cullen said he did not have that information. He would not be privy to tax arrangements made in individual cases.

He added that he did not believe politicians should be directly involved in the individual affairs of taxpayers. "That would be a very dangerous crossover in terms of good practice in this country."

Mr John Gormley (Green Party, Dublin South East) suggested that tax evasion was endemic in the State, given that political parties operated the "pick-me-up" system.

Disagreeing, Mr Cullen said there was no evidence to suggest that was the case.