Ms Josephine Feehily:

As I outlined earlier, we were securing evidential documentation under High Court order. It was into 2002 and 2003 before we had secured all of the papers for the first four High Court Orders. It is not just a question of prosecuting.

We had to get the evidence. The gathering of evidence for this investigation was going on in the early part of the noughties under High Court orders.Assembling them and connecting them to cases, identifying the mens rea, the knowingly and wilfully, etc., identifying the tax evasion, connecting the evasion to an account to a person, is a very painstaking exercise. Then the question was when was the offence committed. The ten years relates to when the offence was committed, not ten years back from the time we might be in a position to go to court. I can assure the Deputy it was examined very closely and, significantly, legal advices were sought.