Minister asks AG's advice on making Bank report public

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy has sought the advice of the Attorney General about whether he can make public a Central Bank investigation on possible breaches of exchange control rules identified by the Dunnes payments tribunal. Among the issues covered by the Central Bank investigation were the controversial Ansbacher accounts of offshore funds, although it is not clear how much the Bank uncovered in this area.

The Attorney General is being asked to advise on whether laying the report before the Oireachtas - which would effectively mean making it public - would prejudice any action which the Director of Public Prosecutions might take as a result of the Central Bank's findings. Mr McCreevy asked the Central Bank to investigate references in the Dunnes report to exchange control. The Bank delivered this report to the Department of Finance last Friday, according to a statement from Mr McCreevy yesterday evening.

The response is being studied by the Department, according to the statement, and "was sent to the Attorney General's office on Friday last for urgent advice on a number of aspects, including the question as to whether it can be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas without prejudice to any consideration or action by the Director of Public Prosecutions".

The statement concludes that: "A reply from the Attorney General's Office is awaited."

The precise scope of the Central Bank's investigation is not known. However, the Bank is thought to have examined the payments routed by Mr Ben Dunne to Mr Michael Lowry through Isle of Man accounts.

It is also thought to have examined the offshore payments made by Mr Ben Dunne to the former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey.

Finally, the McCracken tribunal uncovered offshore bank accounts held in Guinness & Mahon in Dublin and later in the Irish Intercontinental Bank. These were effectively offshore accounts, held in the name of Ansbacher bank in the Cayman Island in the Irish banks.

Mr Haughey was one of the beneficiaries of money held in these accounts, although a small number of other Irish residents is also believed to have funds in the accounts, which at one time amounted to over £38 million.

After a number of lengthy Dail exchanges on the matter, Mr McCreevy confirmed that he did ask the Central Bank to examine the operation of these accounts and whether they breached exchange control rules.

However, it is not clear how much detail the Bank managed to uncover about the accounts and their operation, as many of the records of these accounts may no longer exist and those which do exist in the State might not identify who owned the money deposited in the accounts.

Until recently, Irish residents were only allowed to hold offshore accounts with the express permission of the Central Bank, which was only given where the account was needed for legitimate trading purposes.

Exchange control rules are set down in 1954 legislation. Depending on the contents of the Central Bank report, the Director of Public Prosecutions may decide to prosecute on the basis of the evidence uncovered.

Conviction of a breach of the rules carries penalties ranging from a fine of up to £5,000 to a jail term of up to two years. The court is also allowed to rule that any money held illegally offshore be "forfeit", although it is not clear how this would be applied where the money involved has already been dispersed.