The Tanaiste strongly defended her decision not to publish the names of the Ansbacher account holders and urged the media to be responsible in its handling of the issue.

"The stakes here are high," Ms Harney said. "High Court inspectors are carrying out an investigation which could, ultimately, lead to serious sanctions against those guilty of wrongdoing." She was responding to a Fine Gael motion, moved in private member's time, calling on the Government to amend the Companies Act to ensure that the names of all persons who held Ansbacher accounts be made public via a Dail committee.

The Government moved an amendment approving the actions taken by the Tanaiste and endorsing the remit given to the inspectors. The House will vote on the motion today.

Ms Harney said the Government had been advised that if the law was changed to allow the reports of authorised officers to be made public, they would have to be compiled in a completely different way.

The authorised officer would have to behave like a judge, or the chairman of a tribunal, or like an inspector. He would have to conduct hearings and allow each and every person to be dealt with according to due process. That would be the end of authorised officers as they knew them, and day-to-day investigation of corporate wrongdoing would cease.

"So, there are two reasons for rejecting the Opposition's arguments for changing the law to make such reports public. First, it cannot be done in this case because the people affected have not received due process. All of the information gathered by Mr [Gerard] Ryan was obtained on the understanding and in the knowledge that it would not be made public.

"Second, it would completely demolish the effective enforcement of company law in the same way as extending the Freedom of Information Act to Garda files."

Ms Harney said that scurrilous allegations were now being made about the leaking of details from the report to the media. "There is a veiled allegation now that I personally may have broken the law and released information from the report. I would like to refute any such allegation totally."

She said she had been aware of the contents of the report for quite some time, as had a small number of officials in her Department. Both she and they had gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that there was no publication of its contents.

"I will neither confirm nor deny the accuracy of reports which have appeared in the national media in recent days. I recognise that the media has a job to do. I would, however, ask them to act in a responsible manner on this very sensitive issue.

"Latin scholars among you will be familiar with the cui bono principle - to whose good does a particular action rebound. The only beneficiaries of leaks will be those who want to destroy the process of investigation which is currently underway.

"The media knows who has been feeding names. I wish I knew. This information is coming either from someone who is extremely foolish and irresponsible; or else it is coming from someone who is determined to destroy the process which is underway.

"I would say to journalists and to editors: don't play into the hands of those who want to destroy this inquiry."

Introducing the motion earlier, the party leader, Mr John Bruton, said they should not lose sight of why the Ansbacher names should be released in a proper way. "There is public outrage about systematic tax evasion. Money that could have been applied to building schools, hospitals and roads, for example, was kept hidden from the Revenue Commissioners in what are believed to be some of the most spectacular acts of selfish greed since the State was founded." He added that the outrage jeopardised the achievement of a new national pay agreement.

Mr Bruton said the Taoiseach was hopelessly misinformed when he told reporters at the National Ploughing Championships that the law could not be retrospectively changed to allow for the publication of the 120 names of the account holders. There were many clear legal precedents for such a retrospective action if it was in the national interest, he added.

"The Taoiseach himself was personally involved in a number of retroactive pieces of legislation. When Minister for Finance in 1994, he personally introduced a retrospective concession, Section 19 of the Finance Act, which solely benefited one taxpayer, Mr Ken Rohan, in respect of his ownership of a stately home."

Mr Bruton said that the 1993 tax amnesty, introduced by Mr Ahern as Minister for Finance, was a retrospective piece of legislation.

"The Tanaiste and the Taoiseach now have grave questions to answer about how these leaks have happened. As the Minister responsible for the report, the Tanaiste is in charge of the maintenance of the confidentiality of this report. Yesterday's partial leak to The Irish Times is, to the extent that it may be accurate, a criminal breach of confidentiality for which Mary Harney has direct ministerial responsibility."

Mr Conor Lenihan (Fianna Fail, Dublin South-West) called on the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Revenue Commissioners to apply the sanctions available under the 1993 amnesty legislation, which provided for an eight-year prison sentence on those involved in tax evasion involving sums over £100,000.

"It is not widely known that the amnesty legislation placed an obligation on those who had evaded their taxes to avail of the legislation. If not, graduated penalties of up to eight years in jail would apply."

Mr Michael Noonan, Fine Gael spokesman on finance, said it was clear from the series of leaks that had appeared in the newspapers that a criminal offence had taken place. He believed the Garda Siochana should investigate this leaking. However, the Garda would fall at the first fence in investigatory terms if the defence of the Tanaiste was brought into play - the suggestion that there might have been no leaks at all.

The Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, noted that the recent disclosures had come against a background of the opening of negotiations between the Government and the social partners on a possible new national agreement. "Any delay in publishing the names will, I believe, create further distrust among workers and further jeopardise the chances of a successful outcome to the negotiations."

It was time we as a society accepted that tax evasion was not a victimless crime and treated it accordingly, added Mr Quinn. "Every pound in tax evaded means either an extra pound added to the tax bill of compliant taxpayers or a pound less to fund schools, hospitals, social welfare or other vital services. While the full extent of the loss to the Exchequer from the Ansbacher scam has yet to be established, it is likely to run into tens, if not hundreds of millions.

"What has intensified the anger of compliant taxpayers is that this massive evasion was going on when PAYE workers were carrying a particularly crippling and disproportionate share of the tax burden and when they were being asked to accept, in the `national interest', cutbacks in essential services on which they and their families depended. Cutbacks that `hit the old, the sick and the handicapped' to quote the weasel words of one of Ansbacher's most prominent clients."

There was a compelling obligation on the Government to examine every and any legal option open to them to place relevant information drawn from the Ryan report into the public domain. It was nonsense to suggest that the Government was prevented from changing the law because of the principle of non-retrospection. There were umpteen examples of valid laws with retrospective elements.

Having lost the argument about retrospection, the Government was at present arguing that to put any names into the public domain would prejudice the right of these people to a fair trial and enable wrong-doers to "get off", but the names of close to a dozen individuals or firms who had had an alleged involvement with the Ansbacher operation had already been put into the public domain through the affidavit sworn in the High Court by the Tanaiste's representative. "How is it that put ting these names into the public domain does not prejudice their right to due process but that publishing other names would do so?"

Failure to have the names made known would lead to a potentially ludicrous situation, contended Mr Quinn.

"We know from the limited information available that those involved in the Ansbacher scam include people who were regarded as pillars of society, captains of industry, members of the boards of some of the most powerful and prominent companies in the country. The type of people who were regarded, especially by Fianna Fail, as the sort of people who make ideal members of the boards of state companies.

"If these names are not published, how will any Minister considering making key appointments to state boards know whether or not the person being considered is, in fact, a tax criminal who may shortly face criminal proceedings?"