The Dail Committee of Public Accounts is recalling witnesses from the Revenue Commissioners and AIB for questioning today on a meeting which took place early last year on non-resident accounts. Details of the meeting emerged unexpectedly yesterday evening.
Evidence given to the committee last night indicated that the former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Mr Cathal Mac Domhnaill, met officials of AIB and Bank of Ireland in January 1998 to discuss plans to begin inspecting declarations for non-resident accounts held by both banks.
Mr Mac Domhnaill will be asked about this meeting today.
AIB's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, have also been recalled. Evidence of one of its partners, Ms Mary Walsh, was central to yesterday's events.
The chairman of the committee, Mr Jim Mitchell, adjourned proceedings last night on foot of what he called a "significant development" relating to Ms Walsh's evidence.
She had earlier been asked by Mr Mitchell to review the notes of the meeting she had with AIB executives on October 30th, 1998, after revealing that she had mistakenly recorded that the current chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Mr Dermot Quigley, and his immediate predecessor, Mr Mac Domhnaill, had been involved in the AIB DIRT issue.
When Ms Walsh came to read the notes back later, she again referred to a meeting between "the then chairman of the Revenue Commissioners" and the bank.
The Chief Inspector of Taxes, Mr Christopher Clayton, then intervened to say that Mr Mac Domhnaill had been present in January 1998 at a meeting between AIB and Bank of Ireland to do with the Revenue's declared intention to look into the matter of declaration forms for non-resident accounts.
Mr Pat Rabbitte referred to a transcript of Mr Mac Domhnaill's evidence earlier in the day, in which he had said he had meetings with various financial institutions on "electronification", industrial relations and so on, but in which there had been no mention of tax.