The Revenue Commissioners are pursuing an active prosecution policy under which 21 cases are currently being processed, Mr Cathal Mac Domhnaill said yesterday.

The Revenue chairman said 17 of these were being pursued under a new system which enabled Revenue evidence to be used instead of a fresh inquiry being instigated by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation. He told the Dail Committee of Public Accounts that the Revenue was seeking Department of Finance approval for a solicitor at principal officer level, who would be assigned the task of "seeing these cases through the court".

Mr Mac Domhnaill was responding to questions about the failure of the Revenue to prosecute high-profile "Lester Piggotttype" cases here.

?????ail Committee of Public Accounts yesterday on why no Lestor Piggott-type prosecution cases had been brought in Ireland.

Mr Jim Mitchell TD, the committee's chairman, said that compared to what had happened in Northern Ireland and Britain, white-collar criminals were taking advantage of the Irish situation.

"I think there has to be more balance in the attitude of the Revenue Commissioners to this crime - and it is crime. There has been no Lester Piggott case in this country," he said.

Mr Mac Domhnaill replied that the committee was discounting the "summary route" taken by the Revenue in tackling tax evasion. He said that there had been "a huge shift" towards compliance since the introduction of self-assessment for sole traders and companies, and substantial sums of money had been recovered as a result of the Revenue's assessments.

He accepted the view of the Comptroller and Auditor General, and the last Dail committee that there was a need for evidence that the Revenue Commissioners "were prepared to go to the ultimate sanction of a custodial sentence".

"There has been a large culture change. We now have an agenda of seeking prosecution and indictment, which is a criminal-type prosecution, for certain offences of a certain flagrant kind," he said.

Mr Mac Domhnaill was requested to report back to the committee in four weeks' time on the Revenue's case to the Department of Finance for the appointment of a solicitor to process the outstanding cases.