Senior figures from banks, building societies and Government Departments will be compelled next week to give evidence to a major political inquiry into the banking system.
A sub-committee of the Dail Committee of Public Accounts will hold five-day-week hearings throughout September to investigate the extensive use of bogus non-resident accounts for tax evasion purposes.
The inquiry, to be chaired by Mr Jim Mitchell TD, will be of an unprecedented scale and intensity and follows yesterday's publication of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the matter. The report will form the basis for the inquiry. A six-member sub-committee of the Dail Committee of Public Accounts will for the first time use new powers to compel witnesses to attend and give evidence.
It is to investigate the "diligence and performance" of the Revenue Commissioners in the collection of Deposit Interest Retention Tax (DIRT) during the 1986-98 period, and the extent to which they met their statutory obligations.
It is also to investigate the extent to which the financial institutions were diligent in collecting DIRT. Non-resident accounts were not liable to DIRT and so bogus non-resident accounts were used for tax evasion. The sub-committee is to meet tomorrow week to decide how to proceed. Yesterday it wrote to financial institutions, the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Finance and other organisations and individuals named or referred to in the report.
The sub-committee has asked them whether they accept the evidence as given in the report, or whether they want to challenge any of it.
Next week's sub-committee meeting will consider the responses to its letters, and will also hear advice from financial and legal advisers. It plans then to identify the procedures to be followed, issues to be considered and the witnesses to be called.
Witnesses will all be the subject of orders compelling them to attend, whether or not they volunteer to attend. This is because only witnesses who are officially compelled to attend are afforded privilege for what they say at the committee.
The intensive inquiry - the first of its kind to be carried out by an Oireachtas Committee - will begin on Monday, August 30th, and end on Friday, October 1st.
The six sub-committee members - Mr Jim Mitchell, Mr Sean Ardagh, Mr Sean Doherty, Mr Bernard Durkan, Mr Denis Foley and Mr Pat Rabbitte - have gone through extensive training in preparation for their task. They have also signed declarations that they have no conflict of interest in the matter.
Teilifis na Gaeilge is understood to have told the sub-committee it will broadcast its proceedings live.