Paul Haran, who was Secretary General of the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment from 1994 to 2004, said he could not recall the precise sequencing of events about alleged tax evasion by senior politicians and would not comment on any specific allegations.
Mary Harney, who was Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, set up an investigation in 1998 into offshore bank accounts, known as Ansbacher accounts.
The civil servant put in charge of the investigation last week sent a dossier to the Public Accounts Committee alleging tax evasion by several former senior politicians and a former judge.
Mr Haran features prominently throughout the whistleblower’s dossier seen by RTÉ Prime Time and is named as the person who had offered him other positions and bonuses of €10,000 and €20,000 to encourage him to wind up his investigations.
However Mr Haran told Prime Time that he knows "that the minister wanted to bring it (the Section 19 Investigation) to a conclusion.
"It was meant to be a preliminary investigation under company law."
"I would have responded to it as directed by the minister - it would have been done by-the-book.
"The Minister would have wanted the proper authorities to have it as soon as possible - rather than keep it within the Department.
"That's why we set up the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.
"The view was you can't have ministers dealing with sensitive investigations such as this."
He said he was "quite confident" that the decision to wind up the investigation had nothing to do with any discoveries by the Authorised Officer.
"I am absolutely clear that no effort would have been made to suppress information.
"The minister's desire was that the information should go to the proper authorities. Asking somebody to complete the report was a part of that."
Asked what the response would have been if politically sensitive names emerged, he said: ''The minister would have been ruthless about this.
"Everything was about getting this out of the political world. She wanted to see all of this moved out of the Department and into the right domain.
"The ODCE [Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement], the gardaí and the Revenue had the resources to deal with this.
"At a certain stage you have to pass it on to the proper authorities to do the real investigating. That was both the minister's and the Department's view."
Regarding a completion bonus, he said he did recall offering one.
He acknowledged that it may have been open to misinterpretation, but insisted it would have been offered because: "The person might have suffered career-wise ... the core goal was to have this work wrapped-up and passed on to the proper authorities.
"Anything that would have been done would be to respond to the human issue of someone who had been working on something for a very long period of time.
"You want to see someone moving on. Maybe it was open to misinterpretation ...The goal would have been to look after the person. To make sure that he's fairly treated. To give him something to recognise the work."
He said if he had known how long the investigation was going to take "I might have organised things in a different way.
"After a certain period of time I would have felt that investigations of this type would best be done in a properly resourced independent office."
"The main thing I worry about is that innocent names may be bandied about unfairly", he said.
Statement on tax claims with authorities: Bruton
Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton has forwarded a witness statement about alleged tax evasion by senior politicians to the relevant authorities.
A statement issued by his department on his behalf, said he is constrained in what he can say about matters that may be the subject of investigations and future court cases.
This is due to his obligations under the new Protected Disclosures legislation.
The witness statement was submitted by a senior serving civil servant who had been working on the Ansbacher investigation, and who had been appointed an authorised officer for the inquiry.
The minister's statement adds: "Following finalisation of the various procedural matters under legislation and advice from officials, the statement under the Companies Act 1990 has now been forwarded to the relevant authorities."
It states that all matters contained in the witness statement "are covered" by documents already submitted to those relevant authorities between 2004 and 2010.
It also says it would be extremely unwise for any minister or politician to get involved or interfere in any way with investigations by bodies like the Revenue Commissioners, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, the gardaí, the Director of Public Prosecutions and tribunals.
The statement says any further questions in relation to the progress of these investigations into alleged tax evasion should be directed to the independent bodies responsible for carrying out the investigations.
In a statement on Saturday, Minister Bruton said the work on the document was not completed "as quickly as expected" due to the retirement of key personnel.
Revenue has tonight said there has been 283 Ansbacher accounts uncovered with €113m in taxes and penalties having been received.
There have been no prosecutions of anyone linked to the accounts.
Revenue has said this is due to the passage of time and lack of paperwork on the accounts.
