Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Taoiseach is aware, there is a commitment in the programme for Government to deal with the issue of tax evasion and to resource the Revenue Commissioners appropriately for that. I raise that issue in the context of an incident in Malta this week where a journalist, a woman named Daphne Caruana Galizia, was killed in a bomb explosion. She was instrumental in the release of the Panama papers, which exposed a number of very wealthy individuals living in Ireland and others who have business interests in Ireland using this mechanism to hide their vast profits away from the tax collectors of not just Ireland but many places in the world. The death of this person is an attack on ordinary tax-paying people everywhere in the world and this Government and every government has a responsibility to do something about this. While we are not in a position to do anything about her death, we are in a position to do something about the issues raised in the Panama papers.

Will the Taoiseach assure the House that the Revenue Commissioners are pursuing those named in the Panama papers and give us a report, if not now then sometime in the future on the progress on that? Will he also give us a report on the fourth EU anti-money laundering directive, which is instrumental in trying to tackle this particular issue. Will he outline why the Government has not implemented it and if it intends to implement it shortly?

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