John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Feehily and her officials. I am delighted to be back on this very important committee. The fact is that the authorised officer was stood down in 2004 by the then Minister. Given that the report goes up to 2011, one would imagine that given the understanding, concern, respect and commitment of a top civil servant and that only six of the 283 cases are outstanding, in order to continue the work in the past seven years one wonders whether the situation could not have been resolved by means of a round-table discussion with the authorised officer, even by successive Ministers and everybody involved in this very notable case going back to the 1980s and 1990s?

Given that this concerned the Ansbacher cases, it amazes me that this matter was not dealt with during the seven year commitment made by that civil servant. Is it not the case that the focus of Mr. Ryan's concern is the 700 entities and not the six outstanding cases? Ms Feehily stated, "The number of connected entities consisting of trusts, associated companies, offshore entities, etc., related to the 289 substantive cases was nearly 700". What does Ms Feehily mean by "related"? What is her definition of "related"? It seems to be a huge amount of companies, practically 100% of related companies. Ms Feehily mentioned there was over €2 billion collected. I am new to this matter, but it would appear to me that Mr. Ryan's concern is not focused on the six unfinished cases but rather the 700 related entities, which would be in this reference book.