Over 2,500 Irish registered nonresident (IRNR) companies have made returns to the Revenue Commissioners as required by legislation, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, has revealed.

This represents just 6.5 per cent of the estimated 40,000 registered companies, according to Mr Pat Rabbitte of Democratic Left. However, the Revenue Commissioners have reiterated that they make every effort to get the returns from registering companies and pointed out that the estimate that there are 40,000 such companies has not been "validated". Replying to a Dail question from Mr Rabbitte, the Minister said 2,622 companies had fulfilled the provisions of section 58 of the Finance Act 1995.