The Labour Party has asked a Dail committee to investigate when the Central Bank knew about the Ansbacher deposits and offshore accounts at Guinness & Mahon Bank.
This follows evidence at the Moriarty tribunal which Mr Derek McDowell, Labour's finance spokesman, says appears to contradict a Central Bank letter read into the Dail record in November 1997.
Mr McDowell has written to Mr Michael Ahern TD, chairman of the Dail Committee on Finance and General Affairs, requesting that the committee ask the Central Bank to meet it. Bank representatives would be questioned on what and when it knew about the Ansbacher deposits and offshore accounts at Guinness & Mahon.
In November 1997, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, read out in the Dail a letter from the Central Bank which said the bank had "no knowledge of the existence of the `Ansbacher deposits' referred to during the McCracken tribunal hearing or of the role played by G & M in the management of those deposits".
However, the Moriarty tribunal was told this week that the Central Bank had had misgivings about the offshore banking activities of Guinness & Mahon from the mid-1970s, and had carried out three inspections, in 1976, 1978 and 1982.
According to Mr McDowell, the Central Bank letter read in the Dail in 1997 "would seem to contradict statements at the Moriarty tribunal."
He said that, while it might be that the board of the Central Bank was not made aware of practices at Guinness & Mahon, "the bank has to assume responsibility for the actions of its agents. It also deserves the opportunity to respond to the issues surrounding it. It seems obvious to me that the place to do this is at the Dail Committee on Finance and General Affairs."