The origins of the Ansbacher report stretch back to the arrest of former Dunnes Stores chief executive and chairman Mr Ben Dunne on drug offences in Florida in February 1992.
This led to his sacking from the company's board. During legal action between Mr Dunne and members of his family, Mr Dunne alleged that he paid former taoiseach Mr Charles Haughey £1 million and gave £200,000 to Fine Gael.
Although Mr Dunne withdrew the allegations once the court case was resolved, Mr Justice McCracken was appointed in February 1997 to lead a tribunal of inquiry into payments by Dunnes Stores companies to politicians.
In September of that year the report from the tribunal of inquiry into Dunnes Stores Payments was published and the Tánaiste, Mary Harney, appointed department officials to investigate Celtic Helicopters and Garuda Ltd.
This led in 1998 to the Tánaiste appointing Mr Gerard Ryan in January 1998 to investigate Ansbacher (Cayman); Guinness & Mahon (Ireland) Ltd; Hamilton Ross and Irish Intercontinental Bank Ltd.
Mr Ryan's report led to a detailed affidavit being filed at the High Court by the Tánaiste, because Mr Ryan identified more than 100 people whom he suspected of having Ansbacher links.
She believed it was necessary to investigate Ansbacher (Cayman) further because she had reason to believe it was carrying out some of its affairs in a fraudulent or unlawful manner.
September 1999 saw the High Court appoint inspectors to examine Ansbacher and identify people who were officers and agents for the company and had accounts with the company.
In April 2002, two unnamed Ansbacher account holders launched a High Court action challenging the inclusion of their names in the report.
Their attempts to mount a challenge while preserving their anonymity were refused by Justice McCracken who rule justice must take place in public.
The President of the High Court Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan ruled two weeks ago that it was in the public interest for the report to be published in full.
He also directed copies be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Revenue Commissioners, and the revenue services in the US and UK because the report suggested criminal offences may have been committed.
However, he cautioned that to have been an Ansbacher customer did not mean a person was guilty of tax evasion, and this should be kept in mind when reading the report.
The main findings of the report are that Ansbacher (Cayman) ran accounts intended to defraud the revenue authorities involving hundreds of millions of euro.
It also found that Ansbacher (Cayman) had run a banking business in the State without having a licence to do so.
The discretionary trust structure operated by Ansbacher in conjunction with Guinness and Mahon was a "sham" trust structure, the report claims. This discretionary trust scheme facilitated widespread tax evasion, it says.