Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Ms Feehily and her officials are very welcome and I thank them for attending.

At this meeting we always look at the negatives because that is what is reported. In my dealings I always point to the Revenue Commissioners as an example of how the public service can run well and efficiently. That said, having read through chapter 27, I believe it has fallen off the pedestal. I focused on chapter 27 on tax settlements for this meeting. I refer to circumstances in which the Revenue Commissioners write randomly to a business or taxpayer stating it or he or she is to be audited, or in which they target a certain sector of industry in which there may be a greater propensity for tax evasion or avoidance. The results of the audits were interesting. The Comptroller and Auditor General examined 45 cases out of over 9,000. Even in these randomly selected 45 cases, there are errors in classification, in how how interest was applied, a lack of documentation in the files and no great evidence of how decisions were made. It is difficult to ascertain exactly how the process was engaged in.

Let me start with the easy point, namely, that 20% of the cases were misidentified. They are included as settlements, but they had nothing at all to do with audits; they were voluntary disclosures. How did this happen? How did 20% of the cases end up being misfiled or mislabelled?