Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. It would be appropriate if, at the end of this discussion, there was a statement from the Revenue on the allegations from the US Senate about Apple and Revenue and the special tax arrangements. Without diverging from the subject under discussion but given that it is in the public interest and all over the media, this is an opportunity for a brief. The committee will consider this on a wider scale at a later stage but it would be appropriate at the end of the meeting.

I do not want to rehash the old ground or go into the issues around the figures. The CSO's estimate of permanent dwelling houses in this State is probably the most accurate. The CSO's 2011 report is handy for Revenue because it states "It is a fact there are 1,994,845 permanent dwelling houses in the State" and it breaks it down into how many are holiday homes and so on. I take Ms Feehily's point that some of those may be involved in trade or be exempt. Mobile homes or demountables are excluded from those figures. These would be citizens who would register their own properties. Returns have not been made in the case of almost 300,000 dwellings. How will Revenue continue to focus in on the 100,000? What will happen to the other figure? The census is the most accurate version of what is there but there are other sources also.