The Government has decided not to pursue more than half the €3.4 million cost of the Ansbacher inquiry from some of the companies named in the scandal. Three of the companies agreed to pay some €1.25 million to the State before the High Court struck out an action by the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, against seven groups and the Central Bank, writes Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter.
Those making payments as a result of the investigation into the unlicensed bank, Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd, are Ansbacher Bank, Guinness & Mahon (Ireland) Ltd, and CRH, the building materials group. Other companies named in the report will make no payment. These are: Hamilton Ross Company Limited; Guinness Mahon and Co Limited (London); Bank of Ireland Private Banking Ltd and Irish Intercontinental Bank .
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, told the Dáil yesterday that the decision to stop the case was taken after legal advice. "There were significant legal hurdles involved in doing anything else," he said.
It is understood that Ansbacher - the London-based bank that owns Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd, the business at the heart of the affair - has agreed to pay about €1 million to the State. Guinness & Mahon (Ireland) Ltd, now a subsidiary of Irish Life & Permanent, is understood to have agreed to pay about €200,000 in respect of its involvement.
The system originated in 1971 in the operations of a Guinness & Mahon (Ireland) subsidiary, Guinness & Mahon Cayman Trust, which was acquired in 1988 by Ansbacher.
CRH, whose registered office in Dublin was central to the operation of the scheme for a period, is understood to have agreed to pay about €100,000. The company's spokesman said this was not a settlement, but a "voluntary contribution" which it said was linked to the involvement of its former chairman, the late Mr Des Traynor. While the High Court inspectorate found that Ansbacher (Cayman) bank was a matter for which CRH must bear some responsibility, the company's spokesman said it had been "formally acknowledged on behalf of the State that CRH has no responsibility for costs arising out of the investigation".
The decision to withdraw the case is one of the final acts of an inquiry that exposed the secretive financial dealings of the former taoiseach, Mr Charles J Haughey, and many of the most senior business figures in the State from the 1960s onwards.
Asked why the State was no longer seeking to recover the full cost of the inquiry, a spokesman for the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, referred to the legal advice and said the Government had recovered "close on €20 million" as a result of the disclosures in the report. "Other inquiries have yielded in total about €800 million to date," she said.
A spokesman for Ansbacher Bank described the development as "a pragmatic settlement" which would bring matters with the Minister for Justice to finality. "It's not in the interest of any of the parties to this application to pursue the matter which would have involved costly protracted and complex litigation," he added.