Committee uses new power to call DIRT witnesses

All witnesses to be called before the DIRT hearings of the Dail Committee of Public Accounts will be subpoenaed or directed to appear to give evidence under oath.

Since the witnesses are directed under law to appear, they will be covered by Dail privilege. This also means that giving false evidence will constitute perjury.

The chief executives of the State's largest financial institutions as well as the chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, the Governor of the Central Bank and the secretary general of the Department of Finance are likely to be directed to appear.

The hearings will be broadcast live by Teilifis na Gaeilge and should occur 23 days between August 30th and October 1st. There will be a preliminary hearing tomorrow though most of it is likely to be in private.

Institutions, State agencies and individuals mentioned in the DIRT report of the Comptroller & Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, have until today to make submissions on the report and the committee's hearings. Other interested parties have also been invited to make submissions. Verbal submissions on these matters may be heard tomorrow.

A subcommittee comprising six members is conducting an inquiry into the raising of DIRT by the financial institutions since its introduction in 1986. It is also inquiring into the role played by the Revenue Commissioners, the Central Bank and Department of Finance in the same matter.

Mr Jim Mitchell, committee chairman, said the provisional hours agreed for the public hearings were Mondays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Fridays from 10.30 a.m. to 1 p.m., and 2.30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Directives to the witnesses to be called before the hearings are likely to be issued on Thursday.

Three senior counsel - Mr Frank Clarke, Ms Mary Irvine and Mr Paul Gilligan - are acting as legal assessors for the committee, while Mr Eugene McMahon and Mr Mark Kennedy, chartered accountants with Chapman, Flood and Mazarf, will act as financial assessors.

Extensive preparations have been made for the hearings including the purchase of new technology, renovations to the room in which the hearings are to take place, and arrangements to place evidence on an Oireachtas website. Evidence may also be broadcast over the Internet.

Meanwhile, Mr John Trethowan, project director with National Irish Bank, has told The Irish Times his bank is happy with the publication of the C&AG's report as it shows there are "issues across the industry. This is the first time that the industry has been bench marked."

Mr Trethowan said NIB also saw the report's content as "an opportunity to get a reference point for NIB". During the past 18 months, during which NIB has been at the centre of controversy concerning interest and fee loading allegations, as well as the sale of unauthorised offshore bonds, the bank has frequently complained it was unfair it alone was being made the subject of so much negative publicity.

Following an audit in 1998, which found that 18 per cent of the non-resident account declaration forms contained errors, the bank centralised control and audited all the documents, Mr Trethowan said. The bank now operated a system identical to that of its sister bank in Northern Ireland, Northern Bank, which conformed with recent British legislation on such matters.

The C&AG's report includes details of an independent audit exercise conducted in May 1999 which found that of 480 non-resident accounts at NIB, only three - or 0.6 per cent - were found after investigation to have problems with their documentation.