Legislation allowing significant new powers of investigation into bogus non-resident accounts by the Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General is expected to pass all stages in the House next week.
The Bill has been welcomed by the chairman of the PAC, Mr Jim Mitchell, who said last night it met 95 per cent of the needs of his committee.
After Cabinet clearance last Tuesday, the Comptroller and Auditor General and Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Special Provisions) Bill, 1998 was published yesterday. In a major step, the Bill will allow the actions and documents of the committee chairman to be protected by privilege between meetings of the committee.
Similar rights of privilege will also apply to all other committee members, when acting on its behalf, and it allows the same privilege to the comptroller and his staff.
"It goes a little bit further than what we suggested in one or two respects. Overall it is satisfactory and vindicates and supports the stand of the committee by meeting virtually all the suggestions of the committee in its first interim report," Mr Mitchell said.
The new measures will allow the comptroller and auditor general to investigate the assessment and collection by the Revenue Commissioners of DIRT tax, which financial institutions are legally obliged to deduct from certain accounts held with them.
Controversy over non-payment of DIRT tax erupted earlier this year after it emerged in Magill that AIB had paid £14 million to the Revenue Commissioners, in spite of the bank's own internal audit suggesting the correct liability was closer to £100 million.
AIB and the Revenue Commissioners subsequently gave varying accounts of what happened during evidence to the PAC.
Where it is necessary for the comptroller to access the accounts of private individuals held in financial institutions, he may, under the Bill, appoint independent auditors for the task. While individual account holders in these institutions may not be identified in the comptroller's reports or otherwise, a section of the Bill provides that details can be furnished to the Revenue Commissioners where he finds primafacie evidence of irregularities in income tax payments.
The Bill also provides for access by the comptroller to the High Court to seek a direction on matters relating to these new functions. However, the comptroller's new statutory powers are to be provided on a once-off, temporary basis.
But the Bill also proposes to introduce a number of permanent changes affecting the Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses) Act, 1997 and the Comptroller and Auditor General Act, 1923.
The changes are in response to the recommendations of the first interim report of the Committee of Public Accounts in October.