Cabinet set to approves changes

Legislation giving the Public Accounts Committee major powers of investigation into bogus non-resident accounts is expected to be cleared by Cabinet today. The Committee is expected to get almost all the changes it sought in its first interim report to the Dail on October 20th on the Revenue Commissioners and the controversy over unpaid DIRT tax.

There was uproar after disclosures in Magill that AIB paid £14 million in DIRT tax to the Revenue Commissioners even though their own internal audits suggested the real liability could be as high as £100 million. It emerged there was a sharp conflict of evidence between AIB and the Revenue Commissioners when each party subsequently gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee.

Today was the deadline for Cabinet approval of legislation giving greater authority to the Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General in their investigations. The House rises on December 17th for Christmas and there is little time left to debate the new measures.

Sources last night said they expected that some of the new powers would enable the Committee to conduct further investigations in the future and would not simply apply to its investigation of the bogus accounts.

The Committee's report sought three sets of amendments to the existing laws. It wanted changes to legislation governing the functions of the Comptroller and Auditor General so that he would have powers equivalent to those of an Inspector of the High Court.

It also proposed extending privilege to cover the actions and documents of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

It wished to see amendments to the Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses) Act, 1997 which would allow the committee to examine taxation matters which were exempted under the act.

The report also suggested giving the committee chairman and his members sweeping privileges relating to their work outside of its meetings. The laws on compellability and the function of the Comptroller and Auditor General were deemed to be inadequate.