A tax partner in AIB's external auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, confirmed to the DIRT inquiry at the weekend that a file note on a meeting she attended with senior AIB executives, concerning contacts between the bank and chairmen of the Revenue Commissioners, was incorrect.
Ms Mary Walsh told the inquiry she had "drawn an incorrect conclusion from information I had been given" at the meeting with two AIB tax executives, Mr Philip Brennan and Mr Noel Glennon, on October 30th, 1998.
She had been given information, she said, about four meetings or contacts with the Revenue Commissioners. "Two of those were with the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners. I incorrectly concluded that all four were with chairmen of the Revenue Commissioners."
On Friday, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Mr Jim Mitchell, had asked Ms Walsh to revise her notes after she had denied what they contained in relation to the Revenue chairmen. When she came to read the revised note to the inquiry, however, just before the close of that day's 10-hour hearing, she again referred to a meeting between "the then chairman of the Revenue Commissioners" and the bank. At that point the chief inspector of taxes, Mr Christopher Clayton, intervened to say that Mr Cathal Mac Domhnaill had been present in January 1998 at a meeting between AIB and Bank of Ireland, to do with the Revenue's proposal to inspect (non-resident account) Form 37s.
Mr Pat Rabbitte referred to a transcript of Mr Mac Domhnaill's evidence, in which he had said he had had meetings with various financial institutions on "electronification", industrial relations and so on, but there was no mention of tax.
On Saturday, Mr Mac Domhnaill appeared before the committee to clarify the situation. He confirmed that he and a number of officials from the office of the chief inspector of taxes had met Mr Brennan and Dr de Buitleir from AIB and Mr Holmes from the Bank of Ireland on January 22nd.
Mr Mitchell asked him why he "had not mentioned this to the committee yesterday".
Mr Mac Domhnaill said he had brought it to the committee's attention on September 9th in response to Mr Rabbitte's question as to whether he had "had any contacts, good, bad or indifferent, with banks in the plural". Mr Brennan had referred to that meeting at the previous day's hearing and said the former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners had been there . "I was trying to give further information beyond that," Mr Mac Domhnaill responded, when the chairman reminded him that he had been asked specifically if he had met anybody from AIB or any other financial institution to discuss a settlement on DIRT or any similar issue.
"I felt I had already put that into evidence," he added.
The current chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Mr Dermot Quigley, was again questioned about his meeting with AIB's former head of taxation, Dr de Buitleir, on October 12th, the day before the Public Accounts Committee hearings were due to begin.
Did he think, on reflection, that he ought to have told the committee about that meeting, Mr Rabbitte asked.
His job was to deal with and talk to taxpayers and he made no apology for that, Mr Quigley replied.
"There was nothing improper about the conversation that I had with Dr de Buitleir. I listened to what he had to say. I told him I was going to make as full a statement as I could make in the interests of accountability at the Public Accounts Committee the following morning - and that's precisely what I did."
He had gone further than any previous chairman of the Revenue "in talking about a particular case", he reminded the committee. That was a matter of record.