A company in which Sinn Féin's finance chief Des Mackin was a director until early this year has made a €40,973 tax settlement with the Revenue, the tax authorities said yesterday.
The payment from Century City, which operates an amusement arcade in the Parnell Centre at Parnell Street in central Dublin, was one of 179 settlements that were made public yesterday.
Defaulters included the company that built the Jervis Street shopping centre in Dublin and Co Wicklow publican Bernard Kelly, who owns FitzGerald's pub in Avoca, the well-known establishment that featured in the BBC television series Ballykissangel. Mr Kelly paid a settlement of €182,180.
After a tax audit, Dublin City Council made a settlement of €549,430 for under-declared VAT. The city council is among a small number of local authorities that have made tax settlements in recent times.
Revenue received €31.42 million in published settlements in the three months to June 2006. The addition of unpublished settlements in the same period brought the total yield from its audit and investigation programme to €146.69 million.
Revenue said 37 settlements totalling €8.32 million related to its long-running investigation into bogus non-resident accounts. Forty-seven settlements totalling €8.94 million related to the investigation into offshore funds, while 34 amounting to €2.36 million related to the more recent investigation into single premium life products
Century City is controlled by Belfast businessman Peter Curistan through a British Virgin Islands entity called Sheridan Developments BVI. In Dublin District Court last January, the Probation Act was applied against the company over its failure to keep proper books.
While not a shareholder in Century City, Mr Mackin sat on the board of the company from 2003 until he resigned as a director last January. The settlement, which arises from a Revenue audit, includes €25,608 in underdeclared PAYE, PRSI and VAT and €15,365 in interest and penalties.
Many of the other settlements reflect Revenue's current focus on the construction industry. The largest settlement - €2.8 million - was from Co Donegal-based company director Pádraig Drayne. Mr Drayne is a director of Jervis Shopping Street Centre Ltd - known now as Jervis Shopping Centre Ltd - a company in liquidation that made a settlement of €1.06 million.
The other directors of this company, which built the Jervis centre in Dublin, include property developer Paddy McKillen and the businessman Paschal Taggart, former chairman of the greyhound racing body Bord na gCon.
Two other defaulters made settlements of more than €1 million. They were Tullamore-based company director George Flynn, who paid €1.89 million for under-declared income tax and VAT and Co Laois joiner James John Wall, who paid €1.83 million for under-declared income tax, VAT, PAYE, PRSI and relevant contracts tax.
Co Kilkenny company director Maxwell Morris paid €970,573 in respect of his liability and a retired company director from Co Kilkenny, Henry J Cleeve, paid €820,000 for his liability.
Co Tipperary businessman Tom Walsh of mature tree company SAP Holdings, a finalist in this year's Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition, made a settlement of €228.419.
Retired RTÉ employee Desmond Fisher, a director of the company that publishes the Carlow Nationalist, made a settlement of €18,854. Fr Peter Clancy of Aughrim Street, north Dublin, paid a settlement of €14,886.
