Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I bring to the Taoiseach's attention the amount of money being transferred out of Ireland in personal remittances. Over the past eight years alone over €10 billion has left the country by way of personal transfers. That is a staggering amount of money. The top five countries to which money was transferred in the past eight year include €843 million to Lithuania and €1 billion to France. The top three countries were: €1.54 billion to Poland, €2.7 billion to the United Kingdom and €3.54 billion to Nigeria. These figures have been published by the World Bank which defines "personal remittances" as the sum of personal transfers and the compensation of employees. It includes all current transfers in cash or in kind between resident and non-resident individuals independent of the source of income of the sender. The World Bank is an internationally recognised organisation and its data come from the International Monetary Fund. I can understand the transfers to other EU countries, for example, money being transferred to the United Kingdom, our nearest neighbour, with over 100,000 British people living in Ireland and over 10,000 Irish students currently studying in the United Kingdom. The fact that people living in Border counties may do their banking in the North is also a factor. But Taoiseach, €3.4 billion transferred to one non-EU country is astronomical. Have Revenue or the Department of Finance any way of tracking this money or where it is coming from?

Are mechanisms in place to ensure the money that leaves this country in personal remittances has been fully accounted for within the Irish revenue and tax system and is not the proceeds of crime or fraud? We cannot have a situation whereby vast amounts of money leave the country with no proper controls or monitoring in place. Will the Taoiseach give assurances that all of these moneys that have been transferred in personal remittances have been fully accounted for within the Irish revenue and tax system?

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