Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hope I can allay the Senator's concerns on the issue. I understand her points. The legislation as drafted is remarkably strong and perhaps, inadvertently, the amendments would substantially weaken the beneficial owner framework and prevent full transparency in the beneficial ownership register. These amendments would allow an incorporated company to enter a date of incorporation or a company number, rather than the date of birth or a PPS number of the beneficial owner. The information which is delivered to the registrar must be of a natural person and the amendment goes against the purpose of the modernisation of the legislation to align with anti-money laundering developments, and I cannot accept these amendments.

This would block the registrar from looking through a company to see who the beneficial owner is. This could mean that only the surface level would be entered on the register, rather than the actual individual person. The Bill provides for the registrar to determine alternative forms of identification for those without a PPS number. We mentioned passports etc. on Committee Stage for both ILPs and common contractual funds, CCFs, in sections 52 and 18 of the Act, respectively.

No matter what mechanism is used to invest in an investment limited partnership, the purpose of the legislation as drafted is to identify the actual person or persons behind the investment, not a company or some other corporate structure, incorporated or unincorporated. The legislation goes further and mentioning a limited company there would prevent us getting through that. The whole essence of the Bill is that actual natural real-life person who controls the company is the person to be identified here. We are taking everything beyond the company and right through the company into whoever controls the company if he or she owns more than 25% of the company or without 25% of the shares if he or she is in a position to control the company. When it comes to the taxation and following through who the real investor is, the real investor is not just a shelf company. The real investor in those cases is the person or people behind the shelf company. Everything in this legislation is to get at the people behind what can be a shelf company. Everything in this legislation is to get at the people holding shares in what can be a shelf company. I believe that is really what the Senator would want us to do. Inserting the reference to a limited company might restrict us to seeing the company and not being able to look through the company to see who controlled it.

The legislation as drafted allows it to get right back to the beneficial owner wherever they may be. That is why we have the reference to PPS numbers. If companies were allowed be in that position, we would be prevented from finding out who the individuals behind that company were. The legislation is stronger because we exclude a provision for company. We go straight through the company to the beneficial owner. I can understand that on the face of it, it looks as though we are excluding companies. However, that is because we have gone much further in the first place; we have gone to the people behind the companies.