Ms Josephine Feehily:

I do not accept nor do I think the data support the view that confidence in the collection system has been damaged. The fact that 205,000 people have already filed does not support that view. The time to make that judgment will be when we pass 1 January, get into next year and run the numbers. In regard to the Deputy's other comment, I need to clarify something. It is not because people have given us their bank account numbers and their telephone numbers that we can be comfortable allowing those people to pay us in March; it is because they have given us permission once, and once only, to debit their bank account. As soon as we have debited their bank account, that authority is torn up, if it is on paper, and it is destroyed, if it is electronic. It is a single debit authority.