Mr. Niall Cody:

I would say we were aware of this problem as long as Swiss banking and bank secrecy has been there. We started following offshore money really since the DIRT inquiry which revealed the bogus non-residence accounts. The bogus non-residence process showed offshore bank accounts that were really not offshore at all and that led into a whole raft of investigations. We set out in the appendix to the report the various different investigations, some of which were onshore and some of which were offshore. The other issue is the EU savings directive. We have been actively involved in discussions at EU level which have been in train since the 1990s. Some member states have been more reluctant to sign up to the savings directive. During our Presidency we were on the point of getting the savings directive finalised with the final two member states. The EU Commission on behalf of the Council has been negotiating agreements with Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Andorra.