Ryanair crashes into advertising standards: Michael O'Leary has never been a great fan of regulators, bureaucrats, politicians or advertising watchdogs. The less Ryanair has to do with these assorted characters the better, seems to be the O'Leary philosophy. Unfortunately, the various regulators don't see it that way.

This week, a Ryanair customer complained that he received an e-mail from the company advertising flights from Cork for just 14 cent. Unfortunately, when the man went to book the flights for himself, his wife and three children, he was quoted a price of €218.

He complained to the Irish Advertising Standards Authority, a body that has tangled with O'Leary on a regular basis. Ryanair's advertisers simply said the authority had no jurisdiction over private e-mails and that it would not be responding to the queries.

So, finally, a great result in favour of Ryanair? Well, no. It turns out the code of advertising standards applies to advertisements carried over the internet and all other electronic systems. Once again: regulators 1, Ryanair 0.

Revenue plays sad song for showbands

Ireland's showbands survived the righteous anger of Bob Geldof but some of the stalwarts of that era appear to have failed in their efforts to put one over on the Revenue.

Music veteran Paddy Cole is, these days, a man of disparate interests. One of those, as the tax authorities discovered, was a bogus non-resident account.

Having subsequently trawled through his affairs and subjected him to an investigation into offshore assets, Cole was left with a tax bill of €834,726 - 65 per cent of which was accounted for by interest and penalties.

The saxophonist is not alone in coming to the attention of Dublin Castle in recent times. One of his fellow stars from the showband era - TR Dallas - found himself contending with the unwanted attentions of the taxman last year.

Thomas Allen, as he is known to his parents and to those who have elected him a Fianna Fáil councillor in Westmeath County Council, was also the subject of a Revenue offshore assets investigation case. In this instance, as reported in the previous quarterly tax defaulters list in Iris Oifigúil in April, the tax outstanding amounted to €7,317. By the time interest and penalties were added to that amount, the bill came to €15,878.

Paddy Cole has, in recent years, moved from showband classics to jazz. This week's news may leave him and TR Dallas singing the blues

Smoking rebels triumph

One of the advantages of travelling on a trade mission with a Minister from Cork is that no matter where you are, you're not going to miss the Munster Final.

As staunch rebel supporters, the Current Account team was delighted when one of the first things on Micheál Martin's Japan schedule was to watch Sunday's classic Tipp-Cork clash from a Tokyo pub.

During a crucial period in the second half, our nerves were pretty frayed, but we discovered that they let you smoke in Japanese pubs, so we grabbed a fag to calm ourselves down.

We first asked the Minister's permission, though, and he said it was okay. However, he did ask that we do not run any stories about him watching the Munster Final in a smoke-filled pub in Tokyo. So we promised. So there you are, we did not write any stories about the Minister watching the match in a smoke-filled Tokyo pub.

Besides it wasn't that smoky . . .

Fares worth dodging

An account win of any kind, especially at this time of the year, always gives a business a lift. But Current Account wonders whether members of Dublin's taxi-driving community will be competing furiously for an account currently on offer from the Revenue Commissioners.

The Revenue, in their continuing drive to track down errant tax dodgers, is looking for a taxi firm to transport their leading investigators around Dublin and surrounding areas on official business.

Now Current Account would never dream of questioning the financial probity of our hard-working taxi men and women, but we do wonder just how many of them would be comfortable sharing their cab every day with a curious Revenue official with time to spare.