Ms Josephine Feehily:

I can understand there is some concern. The Deputy asked if Revenue had undertaken any risk analysis. I come back to the point I made earlier that in April, May and June this year large numbers of people paid via debit or credit card even though the payment was not due until July in respect of which Revenue received virtually no complaints. It is difficult to anticipate something that did not happen before. The online and paper systems being used now are the same as those used previously. On the last occasion, the final date for online filing was 27 or 28 May. I recall I was in Leinster House on that day. People used their debit or credit cards in advance. That dimension of it was not something that was evident from the analysis we did from the first half year. It is clearly evident this time.

To be fair to Revenue, we felt we were meeting our customer service responsibilities by giving people so many different options to pay. There were times last year when I was tempted to say we would not accept payment by debit or credit card. Revenue only commenced accepting payments in this way in 2012. It is a new thing for Revenue. It is almost as if the additional piece of service has become the problem. I am being flippant. I have no intention of stopping Revenue accepting debit or credit card payments. If people wish to pay in that way, it is Revenue's job to facilitate them in every way it can. The fact that the tax spans the year has made this one particularly difficult. It is not tax that is due in 2014 rather it is tax payable on or before 1 January 2014. The reason for that date - Deputy Stanley referred earlier to my remarks in this regard on the last occasion I was before the committee - is so that we can set up the phased payments. It is all part of trying to give the optimum service. We cannot give the optimum service on every eventuality. For all of the people who are unhappy about one method of payment I have requests to add seven, eight, nine or ten other payments methods. All of these have to be evaluated in the context of service and cost.