Revenue inspectors cannot establish whether those who availed of the tax amnesty breached it because investigators are not allowed access to the declarations made by individuals applying for the amnesty, the Dáil was told.
The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, said that the 1993 tax amnesty legislation included an assurance of confidentiality for people.
He also confirmed that 10 financial institutions would be co-operating with the Revenue's proposed investigation into offshore accounts, which would start formally on March 29th.
The Minister added that not all the money held in offshore accounts related to tax evasion as there were many good reasons to have offshore accounts.
Mr Paul McGrath, Fine Gael's deputy finance spokesman, said it made "a laugh of the amnesty provisions" that the Revenue Commissioners were refused access to declarations in two-thirds of the cases, of 20 people whom they pursued to establish if they breached the amnesty provisions.
The burden of proof in criminal cases was of the highest standard, beyond reasonable doubt, and the same applied to criminal prosecutions in tax offences, said Mr McCreevy.
He added that "where a taxpayer agrees to co-operate in an investigation and where Revenue cannot otherwise access relevant evidence, the taxpayer's right against self-incrimination, will restrict the potential for a prosecution".
Mr McGrath said that when the 1993 tax amnesty was introduced the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, who was then Minister for Finance, stated that he looked forward to the day when tax cheats would be jailed.
"We heard absolute guarantees that people who availed of the amnesty and were subsequently found to be in breach of it would face the rigours of the law and be pursued to the ends of the earth until they were captured," said the Westmeath TD.
He added that "it seems that if someone makes a voluntary declaration Revenue does not even bother to pursue the power given to it under that amnesty to pursue those people".
