HSBC declines Public Accounts Committee request

HSBC in London has told the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts that it will not be coming before it to discuss the bank's apparent role in the facilitation of tax evasion through its Swiss branch.

The chairman of the committee, John McGuinness TD, told the committee that it has received a response to its request that someone from the global bank come before the committee. The bank said that it had appeared before the Public Accounts Committee in Westminster and had "nothing further to add".

"They basically said, no, they wouldn't be here,' he told Joe Costello TD. The bank has told the committee it could arrange for someone from HSBC bank in Dublin to attend.

The committee wanted to hear from the London-headquartered bank in the wake of the so-called Swiss Leaks disclosures in which media outlets around the globe, including The Irish Times, prepared reports based on leaked information from HSBC Private Banking in Switzerland.

The information included details of accounts held by Irish resident customers, some of whom have subsequently made settlements with the Revenue Commissioners. The leaked documents were shared with The Irish Times as part of a project organised through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Amongst the matters covered at the London hearings when senior executives of the plc came before the UK committee, was the performance of the UK tax authorities in relation to prosecuting people who were found to have been hiding money in the Swiss bank.

The leaked information on which the Swiss Leaks project was based, was given by the French authorities, who discovered it in a house in France, with the Irish and UK tax authorities, as well as authorities in other jurisdictions. The Revenue decided it did not have sufficient evidence to support a case against the bank for facilitating tax evasion.