Fraud must not be borne by public

With the publication last weekend of the Ansbacher Report, and the revelations it contained, there really wasn't too much left for the Dáil to do yesterday except utter a formal condemnation and fulminate against those who defrauded the country.

Yet, it was important that our parliament return from its summer recess to debate, in a special session, one of the most shameful episodes of tax evasion on a grand scale unearthed in this country.

Tánaiste Mary Harney, who established the enquiries that resulted in the report, went to the heart of the matter when she said that the whole affair had undermined the sovereignty of the very State itself.