allegations which led to the resignation of Ireland's foreign minister on Tuesday.

Ray Burke, an MP in the ruling Fianna Fail (FF) party for 24 years and Foreign Minister since June's general election, quit parliament amid growing calls for a newly established sleaze inquiry to investigate the way he operated a scheme which gives Irish passports in return for industrial investment.

Under the scheme, 11 passports were issued in December, 1990 to the family and friends of Saudi Arabian Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz in return for IRL 20 million ($28 million) in investments in Ireland.

Mahfouz, the former head of the collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), gave his address as Glenmore House, an estate in Clonee, County Meath, 30 minutes from the Irish capital of Dublin.

The estate which Mahfouz claimed to be his permanent Irish address -- a requirement of the passports-for-investments scheme -- is owned by Cornwell Holdings Ltd., a Bermuda-registered exempted company managed by Coson, the trust arm of Bermuda law firm Cox and Wilkinson.

Irish investigators will certainly use all possible legal measures in Bermuda to investigate Mahfouz's offshore interests and their connection to breaches in the passports-for-investments regulations.

Finance Minister Grant Gibbons said yesterday that his Ministry has had no contact so far from any Irish tribunal investigating the matter.

"We would certainly be pleased to consider any approach and then we would have to look at the legal aspect of what was being called for,'' he said.

Lawyer Douglas Pullen, senior associate with Cox and Wilkinson and the person responsible for Cornwell Holdings in Bermuda, said it was company policy not to comment about its client's affairs.

Unusually, the grant of citizenship to Mahfouz was personally authorised by then-Justice Minister Mr. Burke and the passports were handed over at a Dublin hotel by disgraced Taoiseach Charles Haughey, an unprecedented gesture by an Irish prime minister.

A civil service report leaked this week revealed numerous other breaches of regulations, including the fact that none of the 11 passport recipients ever swore the required oath of allegiance to their new country.

Now, Opposition MPs are demanding to know where the 20 million investment went -- at least 3 million is still unaccounted for and some of the 17 million balance does not appear to have been invested in approved projects.

A tribunal already set up under high Court judge Michael Moriarty to investigate corruption among MPs and local government councillors is expected to look at the Mahfouz investments.

Lawyers for the tribunal are expected to focus on the money trail and its links to Bermuda and other offshore banking jurisdictions. The Opposition suspects Mahfouz's Bermuda-registered company may have been used to channel the investment funds.

Cornwell Holdings Ltd., which was incorporated on September 21, 1990 at the time Mahfouz was negotiating to buy the estate, has never filed accounts or a list of directors in the seven years since registering ownership at the Land Registry in Dublin.

Opposition Fine Gael spokesman and MP Mr. Jim Higgins asked yesterday: "Why did Mr. Burke take such a personal interest in the passport applications of these two men?'' He also questioned whether Mahfouz had ever been to Ireland, apart from when he received his passport. Only two of the 11 appear to have lived in Ireland for any length of time, despite a legal requirement to do so.

Meanwhile, a previous tribunal earlier this year, which revealed that Mr.

Haughey had lived a jet-set lifestyle funded by seven-figure "gifts'' from businessmen, is still fighting the Cayman Islands government in the Cayman Supreme Court for access to accounts in the Asbacher Bank which are thought to contain 40 million in suspect Irish money.

Mahfouz and his right-hand man, Haroon Rashid Kahlon, who also received an Irish passport, were heavily implicated in the collapse of BCCI, the world's biggest ever fraud. Conspiracy and fraud charges stemming from the takeover of an American bank by BCCI were only dropped by the US government in 1993 after they agreed to pay $225 million in administrative fines.

The controversy over the passports was the final blow to Mr. Burke's political reputation, which had been battered by his admission last month that he had received 30,000 in cash from a construction company boss during the 1989 election campaign. He was interviewed by police more than 20 times in the 1980s over corruption allegations but was never charged.

His resignation from the Dail, the lower house of the Irish parliament, could lead to the collapse of the four-month-old minority government if FF loses his seat at the by-election.

Insiders think it is possible Mr. Burke will stand as an independent in the by-election. He could then continue to support the minority government, but would be unconstrained by the party whip.

Ray Burke