The section provides that an inspector may utilise for the purposes of corporation tax any documents to which he or the Revenue Commissioners has or have lawful access for the purpose of any tax or duty under the care and management of the Revenue Commissioners.

I take it that this is only in reference to the particular company or group of companies involved?

Any information which is lawfully at the disposal of the Revenue Commissioners, or to which they have lawful access——

In relation to the particular company which is under consideration?

I do not think it would be right to confine the Revenue Commissioners and I do not think they are so confined under existing law. One might reasonably suspect that the sources of information available to them are quite extensive. If they have information which is lawfully in their possession, and such information does not appear on documentation furnished by a particular company or group of companies, then it would be lawful for them to use it.

What does the Minister mean by the continued use of the word " lawful "?

For instance, information they would glean from the newspapers, which, of course, might be incorrect——

Why does the Minister say " lawfully "? He has repeated it, qualifying almost every sentence. Is it not to be presumed that any information that reaches the Revenue Commissioners is theirs lawfully?

I cannot think of any circumstances in which they might have unlawful information——

They could always do a Watergate. It has been suggested that State agencies have done that kind of thing. But even if the Revenue Commissioners got information by such a process, they would still have their information lawfully. Surely they would not get their information unlawfully?

No. They obtain their information in any way they can, so long as it is within the law.

As long as they do not break the law. For instance, if somebody dropped a pocket book in the street and there was information of interest to the Revenue Commissioners in it, would they be entitled to use it?

No, not in law.

They could not necessarily put it in evidence, but they would be entitled to read it to orient them on the facts.

Under Schedule D—to take a simple case—where there are two solicitors separate and apart, and one is assessed under Schedule D, they cannot use the information of the other solicitors' returns in relation to the first solicitor's returns where they are both separate and not correlated. Just because they are in the same business they cannot quote B's case——

They cannot quote it, but they can certainly form their own judgment from it for provisional assessments and so on. It does not seem to me to be necessary to qualify every sentence by the word " lawful ".

Deputy de Valera is right.

On the record that word " lawfully " repeated would look as if the Minister were carefully accepting something else that is not there.

If it were not there, the suggestion might be made that perhaps the Revenue Commissioners make their own laws for obtaining information——

And up to a point they can.

They have certain powers conferred on them by statute in relation to the collection and correlation of information.

So have the police.

If they exceed those powers, they would be acting unlawfully.