Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald has called on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to clarify what contact the Government had with a senior civil servant regarding a dossier alleging tax evasion by a number of former politicians.

The Irish Times reported this morning that Gerry Ryan, who provided a dossier on the matter to the Public Accounts Committee, brought his claims to the attention of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment under successive Governments.

“The Taoiseach needs to clarify now, the contacts that happened between the whistle-blower and members of his Government. In particular he needs to set out what contact happened between the whistle-blower and Minister Richard Bruton and the whistleblower and the Attorney General,” Ms McDonald said.

“Mr Kenny needs to set out what action Mr Bruton took, if any and he needs to clarify a point in respect of a witness statement which I understand was passed to Mr Bruton in December 2012 and to confirm that the witness statement was passed on to the Garda Bureau Fraud Investigation,” she said.

Mr Ryan was asked in 1998 to investigate tax evasion schemes by former Tánaiste Mary Harney. In the covering letter of his dossier, the civil servant states that he was asked to terminate his investigations - while they “were ongoing and before they were complete” - by Ms Harney in June 2004.

Gardaí have confirmed that they investigated allegations of substantial tax evasion by people, including senior politicians and at least one former judge, in 2007.

“The whistle-blower had made several efforts to bring these matters to the attention of his superiors and came to the public accounts committee as a last resort, ” she said.

“It seems the whistle-blower was frustrated at every turn in his attempts to complete an investigation; that is the claim. Quite outside of the serious allegations of perhaps even criminal wrongdoing by people, there are questions to be answered in the here and now by this Government,” she said.

Ms McDonald said the Taoiseach does not require legal advice to answer these questions.

“I see no reason as to why Enda Kenny can’t answer these questions today. I think it would start the process of dealing with these issues and figure out what mechanism or channel is most appropriate for the more serious and perhaps criminal allegations in the file,” she said.

Ms McDonald said she hadn’t met the whistle-blower and that the dossier arrived to her by registered mail on Wednesday morning and that she phoned the person to verify the letter.

“I did make contact with the whistle-blower by telephone, the disclosure was not anonymous, it was signed with full details,” she said.

“It seems in the view of this person that they have been frustrated in pursuit of a legitimate investigation and that even up to this Government there has been no adequate response or action taken in response to the allegations,” she said.

“I see no reason as to why Enda Kenny can’t answer these questions today. I think it would start the process of dealing with these issues and figure out what mechanism or channel is most appropriate for the more serious and perhaps criminal allegations in the file,” she said.