Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The reason I asked about resources was that we were led to believe that resources were a major issue in why this took so long. Mr. Ryan sent the Minister the statement via an assistant secretary in December 2012. When no action followed, he wrote to the Minister again in 2012 to complain that he had not forwarded this statement to the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation, as required of him. It was reported that his correspondence also emphasised the importance of the statement which he believed carried substantial evidence supporting allegations of a conspiracy to defraud the Revenue Commissioners.

In anybody's mind, this is a very serious issue and one which would be a priority for a Minister to deal with, and a priority so strong as to allocate the necessary resources to deal with it. Another year passed and the Minister's office still had not dealt with Mr. Ryan's statement and he clearly had no option but to bring the issue to the Committee of Public Accounts. Mr. Ryan's statement had also been sought by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation. It is incredible that a resource issue is the basis of a two-year delay in regard to this important detail.

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