It is rare for the Dáil to be recalled to discuss a matter of major public importance during the summer recess. The purpose has to be extraordinary. And in that context it was entirely appropriate that a whole day was devoted to debating the Ansbacher Report yesterday - even if the contributions of some were little more than ritual denunciations of all that has unfolded.
The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, was correct in her assessment that the findings of the Ansbacher Report take us directly to issues at the heart of our democracy. A state that cannot collect taxes, through lack of will, lack of authority or a degeneration of its political culture, has failed. The report and the process of work which produced it, was tested nearly to destruction in a legal sense. It is a testament to Ms Harney, the authorised officer and the inspectors that it came through that cauldron with unassailable authority.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr Kenny, contextualised the report as a damaging critique of our gilded elite, a damning indictment of worlds within worlds, where tax evasion was endemic, where conspiracy to defraud was commonplace. It was time, he said, to divest ourselves of the notion that taxes were only for the little people.
The Labour spokesman, Mr Broughan, spoke for the majority of compliant taxpayers in his contributions. It was even more disturbing to reflect that "this criminal conspiracy to evade tax" was taking place when PAYE workers were required to pay penal rates of personal taxation in order to keep essential public services, such as health, education and welfare, in operation.
But the publication of the Report and the one-day debate in the Dáil must not mark the end of the Ansbacher Cayman affair. Ms Harney said that the Ansbacher, DIRT and other tax-evasion schemes indicated significant regulatory failures on the part of the Revenue Commissioners, the Central Bank, statutory auditors and their professional associations and the enforcement of the code of company law. All of these loopholes must be plugged by the Government, including independent regulation of professional bodies, if the Ansbacher Ireland is to be consigned to the past.