Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 12 March 2015

Public Accounts Committee

Revenue Commissioners Investigation of HSBC Offshore Accounts

10:00 am

Mr. Niall Cody:

Whether it is in the public domain, we are constrained under our agreement with the French authorities. I will say that the French were hugely co-operative. The French made it known that they had this disk and once we asked for it, they were hugely co-operative. My understanding relates to any Administration that asked the French for the extracts. They could only give us what they thought was linked to Irish taxpayers. It would have been illegal to give us what was not linked. They had a very comprehensive disk and obviously cut out what they thought was linked to Ireland and gave us that.