Banks cannot avoid their share of responsibility for the loss to the State resulting from DIRT evasion, according to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy. During his address to a finance workshop at the Fianna Fail ardfheis yesterday, the Minister said: "I don't think they will avoid it either, however long the process takes." Mr McCreevy was sharply critical of those involved in the recent "scandals" of tax evasion, which "dismay and disillusion and horrify us".
"And though a lot of people evaded tax through bogus non-resident bank accounts, it is worse that those with the highest responsibilities of wealth and power should have engaged in the lowest behaviour," he said.
He had been very quick to bring forward new laws to combat tax evasion, and "in relation to banks, to Ansbacher account holders, to tax evaders, we must follow due process with toughness and determination".
There was no excuse for "anything but the highest standards any more". Mr McCreevy said he had argued in the 1980s that penally high tax rates discouraged people from paying tax. "Now that we've reduced taxes, that no longer applies. This is the deal: we'll make taxes fair, but we'll demand total compliance in return," he added.
It was deeply disappointing that banks, to a greater or lesser degree, "should have permitted a culture and practice of tax evasion to take hold in their very institutions".
Public interest "rightly demands that that should be rooted out forever". He added, however, that it did not provide an excuse "for governments and ministers for finance to become vengeful, seeking quick fixes to punish people and companies, and doing it without the process of law and natural justice".
Everyone would "want our anger at past scandals to be calm and effective rather than raging and destructive". Tax crime should be dealt with "by the proper legal and judicial processes".
Although the banks could not avoid their share of responsibility for DIRT losses, he stressed that "at the same time, we are not out to wreck the banks, and the businesses, jobs and developments which they support".
"Many thousands of people work in the banks - honest work, hard work, which makes a lot of other work possible. Yes, the banks do it for profit, but we can't be in favour of an enterprise economy but against certain types of basic businesses, such as banks. It just won't work that way," he said.
The Government was determined, he added, to "promote the interests of all our citizens in relation to tax evasion, financial crime and the role of financial institutions".