Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Redmond and his colleagues from the Irish Tax Institute. On behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party I welcome today's announcement by the Minister that there will be no change for 2014 at least. I regard the announcement as a stay of execution. The Minister has again reaffirmed in his statement his intention to bring forward the pay and file deadline. There should be no loss of momentum in the efforts made by him and the members of the institute. In recent weeks the Government took notice and agreed not to implement any change next year. Credit for that is largely due to the institute, the professional accountancy bodies and representatives of small businesses. All of those groups made the effort to contact individual Members of the Oireachtas. That led to the making of a Government decision in record time, because the consultation period ended only 12 days ago.

I would like a final decision to be made on the matter, because an element of uncertainty remains. For example, uncertainty will remain for the next year about the arrangements for 2015. We should not allow the matter to drift well into 2014 without knowing the position for the following calendar year. I regard the matter as important.

Fianna Fáil made a submission on the issue in which we recommended no change in the pay and file arrangements and substantiated the reasons. It is my view that the current system operates on the basis of goodwill. In many respects, members of the institute and the professional accountants who provide taxation services carry out the work of the Revenue Commissioners. That is the nature of the self-assessment system and it is one of the very successful features of the Irish tax system. Any change must be carefully thought through.

I have a few questions. What percentage of returns are done online?