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

There is a big-ticket item here on which I have a couple of questions for the Minister. The Minister will be well aware of Sinn Féin’s call for additional staff to be employed in the Revenue Commissioners. The Office of the Revenue Commissioners itself has said that it could generate additional income for the State if it had the resources. In fairness, when the local property tax was made the responsibility of the Revenue Commissioners the Government proposed to increase the number of staff. However, the figures before us today show that the increase never materialised. In 2012, there were 5,715 staff. The estimate for 2013 was 5,874 because of the local property tax. There was an increase of just below 160 proposed but the provisional outturn was 5,756. Therefore, there were 118 fewer staff in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners than actually approved. This was at a time when the office was dealing with the local property tax. There is great admiration for the Revenue Commissioners’ online system and capability of getting notices out, and forms are issued like clockwork, including to employers. The local property tax is a different ballgame, however. There were many errors when it was introduced, and the Revenue Commissioners explained this would happen. Why were there 118 staff fewer than were approved? The Minister is saying that 22 staff have been moved to shared financial services but there has been an overall decrease within the Office of the Revenue Commissioners again this year. The office stated to the Department that an increase of 100 would bring in a quite substantial amount of additional revenue for the State. Does the Minister not believe this? Will he deal with this issue in detail?

I am an admirer of the online revenue system. It is outstanding. Consider the subject of office equipment and external IT services. One sees that there was a substantial cost associated with running IT services in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners amounting to €49 million. Some €25 million of this is for external IT systems development and maintenance. This seems very high. Can the Minister shed any light on that? The Office of the Revenue Commissioners is to spend close to €5 million buying new computers. Is this to replace the entire suite? Some €14 million is to be spent on maintenance and meeting running costs. The figures seem very high. Expenditure on printing, at €1.1 million, seems to be a lot lower.

There is another increase pertaining to consultancy costs but it is in respect of specialist X-ray equipment for the Customs and Excise service. We need to increase capability in the Revenue Commissioners in this regard. Expenditure on motor vehicles and equipment maintenance, including the maintenance of X-ray scanners and specialist equipment, is actually down by comparison with last year. It has been shown that if there were proper resources to deal with black market activity, it would be very beneficial to the State. I am concerned about this area.

There is a 30% increase in the amount to be made available to the Revenue Commissioners to meet legal fees. A large increase pertains to bankruptcy and liquidation. In addition, there is quite substantial increase in terms of solicitors’ fees. This is an issue.

Could the Minister state what is happening with the disabled drivers and passengers scheme? There is no allocation or budget provided for 2014 because it is mentioned that the existing scheme will continue. I am not clear on this. I acknowledge that the scheme, which is new, requires European approval but there is no budget for an old scheme. The only budget was for the board. Could the Minister shed some light on this?