Ireland must walk a delicate line amid the offshore scandals

Kyran Fitzgerald tracks the rise and rise of a trillion-dollar global industry designed to avoid taxes, protect the wealth, and much worse.

The writer, Somerset Maugham, once described Monte Carlo as a “sunny place for shady people”. These days, there are plenty of locations serving as places of refuge for funds amassed by sometimes shadowy characters.

However, there are signs that the tide may, at last, be turning and that the heyday of the international tax haven may have passed.