Ansbacher report should be published in full

By this day next week we may finally have a definitive list of who was involved with Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd. Mr Justice Finnegan is due to decide next Monday whether or not the report that is the culmination of an investigative process stretching back to the McCracken Tribunal in 1997 should be published in full.

All the indications are that the document reads like a Who's Who of Irish business over the period up to the mid 1990s when the Ansbacher accounts and related tax scams came to light. Some, but by no means all the people named, will have used the bank and related companies to evade Irish tax and last-ditch legal efforts are expected this week from individuals who feel they will be unfairly named in the report.

From a wider business perspective publishing the names looks likely to achieve little, other than provide an interesting diversion from the rather real problems facing the Irish economy.

It is worth noting that the existence of the accounts and the tax evasion schemes built around them have already been exposed. The laws of the State have been broken, but the bodies charged with rectifying this have been put in a position to do so.

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement already has a copy of the report and its chances of successfully prosecuting breaches of company law are unlikely to be impaired if the report is not published in full.

Similarly, the chances of the Revenue Commissioners successfully pursuing individuals who used the accounts to evade tax will be largely unaffected. The prospect of any economic loss to the State being recovered will be no higher if the report is published.

There also appears to be very little appetite among the wider business community for its dirty laundry to be washed in public, judging by the way business appeared to close ranks after a number of very high profile businessmen were linked to the accounts in the report of the Department of Enterprise and Employment investigation into Ansbacher (Cayman Ltd) published in September 1999.

The attitude of business was best summed up by the indignant blustering that characterised the response of CRH to the allegation that its former chairman, Mr Des Traynor had run his unlicensed Ansbacher banking operation from its head office on Fitzwilliam Square and that eight of CRH's 15 directors numbered among his customers in 1987.

In fact, the most amazing thing about this whole Ansbacher affair to date is how little damage the revelation that they were involved with Ansbacher has really done the businessmen concerned. With the exception of Mr Jim Culliton, a former CRH director who promptly resigned voluntarily from a number of quoted company boards, it is hard to think of any other individual whose position suffered as consequence of being identified as connected with Ansbacher. The businessmen's peers seemed more than happy to give them the chance to explain their position and demonstrate that their involvement was innocent.

Mr Tony Barry - a former CRH chairman and chief executive who acknowledged links to Ansbacher - is a good example. He quickly clarified that he had paid money into an Ansbacher-related account but that it was after tax income and for the benefit of his children. He was subsequently appointed chairman of Greencore and remains a director of Bank of Ireland and DCC.

Mr Clayton Love Jnr, who was identified as a director of a company involved with Ansbacher, remains a successful businessman in Cork. He also served on a Government water safety task force. He has denied ever being an account holder. Several other well known businessmen have brushed off tangential and not so tangential connections with Ansbacher and its Irish parent Guinness & Mahon.

In some ways this rather cuts the ground from underneath those who argue that even to be associated with Ansbacher is hugely damaging and as a consequence nobody should be named in the published report.

There are several interpretations that can be put on the somewhat relaxed attitude of corporate Ireland to what has emerged to date. On the one hand it speaks volumes about how far and how deep into the upper echelons of Irish business run the roots of Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd.

For every account holder there must have been at least one solicitor and one accountant and one banker who knew what was going on. Without a doubt these individuals now pepper the senior ranks of our banks, law firms and accountancy practices.

There is undoubtedly an element of people in glass houses not throwing stones in the business community's rather measured response to date, but that does not amount to a conspiracy of silence about endemic corruption in the business community of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Maybe it is simply that nobody in business really cares anymore. Perhaps they find it hard to believe there was a grand conspiracy or the sort of widespread hardcore tax-evasion we have been told was orchestrated by Des Traynor.

Maybe they think that even if some businessmen were evading tax it is no big deal and anyway that sort of thing doesn't happen nowadays.

After all, tax rates were punitive in the 1980s and, in the round, most of the people involved with Ansbacher probably made a positive contribution to the economy. Indeed many of them are still making a positive contribution. Perhaps they want to move on rather than rake over events that happened 20 years ago.

Knowing who did or didn't have an Ansbacher account is not going to reduce inflation, control public spending or bring down the cost of insurance.

Unfortunately it is not really that simple. It is important that we know once and for all what went on and who was involved in it. Above all we have to know how widespread the corruption was. It is only when we know what happened and who was involved that we can say with any certainty that things don't work that way any more. I don't think anybody can say they don't think it important that we can say that. The report must be published in full.

jmcmanus@irish-times.ie