Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

These companies are marketed as onshore but seem to fit the IMF's definition of offshoring - they are non-resident and separated, to a large degree, from the domestic economy and its activities. I ask Dr. Stewart to comment on this matter.

To follow up on the charitable trust piece, in another area of work we look a lot at the regulation of charities. Actual charities are subject to quite onerous and rigorous regulation. Do we need to rigorously re-examine what constitutes a charitable trust? How does the term "charitable trust" relate to registered charities and their activities in Ireland or elsewhere? What type of relationship should a parent group have with a charitable trust within its group in terms of how the assets of a charitable trust may be used by a group structure and how liabilities are dealt with? Is that a specific area? I am speaking about the definition of a "charitable trust" and the relationship between a parent company and a charitable trust in the context of the examples of tighter regulation in other countries.

With the charitable trust piece, I am not simply thinking in terms of the Russian assets and those structures because charitable trusts are used quite a lot in Ireland, and very often as part of large groups of companies, and this is done in a way that is questionable. I ask Dr. Stewart to outline where there are better examples of tighter regulation.