Tipperary North TD Michael Lowry has indicated he believes the Revenue Commissioners have sent a file on his tax affairs to the DPP for a decision on whether to prosecute him, write Mark Brennock and Arthur Beesley.
The Revenue declined to comment last night on whether it had sent a file to the DPP concerning Mr Lowry's tax affairs. They first became a matter of controversy when the McCracken tribunal investigated payments to him from businessman Ben Dunne who funded major renovations to his home.
Mr Lowry denounced the leaking of information about him to the media yesterday, but told The Irish Times he had "no reason to discount" an RTÉ report that the Revenue had asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether to prosecute him or his company. He had been told the Revenue was examining his case as a "potential prosecution case".
The Revenue Commisioners said in a statement late last night: "We wish to refute in the strongest possible terms the suggestion, from any quarter, that information regarding a specific case, currently the subject of comment in the media, came from Revenue. It always has been, and remains, Revenue policy not to discuss the tax affairs of any individual or company with any third party."
If he is prosecuted, Mr Lowry would be the second former government minister charged with tax offences. Ray Burke was sentenced to six months jail in January for giving incorrect information to the Revenue Commissioners.
The 1997 McCracken (Dunnes Payments) tribunal made it clear that Mr Lowry and former taoiseach Charles Haughey had not paid taxes that were due on payments they received from Ben Dunne.
It also emerged that Mr Lowry had availed of the tax amnesty in the mid-1990s, which raised questions over whether he had made a full disclosure at that time.
Mr Lowry insisted that the fact that he had made a voluntary disclosure of tax owing to the Revenue Commissioners in 1996, shortly after it emerged that Ben Dunne had financed major refurbishment of his Co Tipperary home, meant that he should not be prosecuted according to the Revenue's own rules.
Mr Lowry, who resigned as a Fine Gael government minister when this emerged, said yesterday that the Revenue Commissioners' position was that "voluntary disclosure" cases were not sent for prosecution.
Mr Lowry accused the Revenue of leaking information about his tax affairs to the press in "a breath-taking abuse of power by the authorities".
He said the Revenue Commissioners had leaked the information to Charlie Bird of RTÉ, but Mr Bird said the Revenue Commissioners had not given him the information.