Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is a key element in understanding the story. Our job here is to ask the questions. What we were reading in the papers is that from 1977 to 1981, which coincided with when the DIRT accounts were coming in for ordinary deposit holders, many of whom I dealt with when I was in practice, a lot of the money was put into non-residential accounts by AIB and other banks. A lot of them dated back to 1977 and 1981. Were some of these accounts that were in the Isle of Man at that time DIRT accounts for ordinary deposit holders who ended up in many cases paying 500% in liabilities? I am not even certain if many of them were fully aware of what they were doing at the time. The banks put them into non-residential accounts.

The Paradise Papers give the impression that AIB was using the offshore accounts in the Isle of Man and Jersey in two ways. In many cases they were deemed to be tax havens and the deposits that were received were being used to fund operations in Ireland. They were effectively a conduit and people were told to put the money offshore, that they would not pay tax and get the best of both worlds. People would not pay tax but the bank would get to use their deposits to grow its business in Ireland. What does Mr. Byrne say to that? That is what comes across in the Paradise Papers. From the papers, it looks as though AIB split into pre-1998 and post-1998 in terms of offshore accounts. Post-1998 it would only allow funds offshore for legitimate tax planning but it was not giving that assurance to pre-1998 deposits.

Our job is to probe what came forward in the Paradise Papers and the veracity of the papers for the information of the public and to hear from AIB. Mr. Byrne might comment on that. I have given a flavour of what I believe is coming across in the Paradise Papers.