The Labour leader challenged the Taoiseach to say if the Government intends introducing legislation to recoup from the banks money lost by the taxpayer because of the DIRT scandal.

Mr Ahern said that the Finance Bill would be published today and matters relevant to the DIRT investigation by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) would be dealt with by it. "It would not be appropriate to spell those matters out now."

Mr Ruairi Quinn said he understood that the Bill would not propose such a move despite the recommendations in the PAC subcommittee's report. He asked if the Government proposed to bring in separate legislation to recoup the money, "which the Irish taxpayer lost as a result of collusion between the banks and many of their customers".

Mr Ahern said that no separate legislation was proposed.