Mr. Gary Tobin:

I understand where Deputy McGrath is coming from in regard to this provision. We would contend that currently there may be some people who do not know that they may have grounds for appeal. In other words there may be people with particular tax situations, which may be grounds for appeal, but because there is no information in the public domain they do not know they could appeal them. It is not the case that everybody will be deterred by this. Rather, a particular group of people who, unknown to themselves have grounds for an appeal, will know, once more information becomes available, that this option is open to them. More generally, this is becoming increasingly the norm in countries where the appeals process is held in public, including the UK, Australia and Canada. In a sense, we believe it is important that the citizenry at large should have confidence that these appeals are conducted in a fair, open and transparent manner.

In regard to the change in relation to the Circuit Court appeal, as things stand - I am open to correction by Mr. O'Leary and other colleagues on this - under the new system a taxpayer who is unhappy with a determination by Revenue can request an internal Revenue appeal or employ an external operator to undertake that appeal; choose to take a judicial review or to take up the matter with the Ombudsman; take a case to the Appeal Commissioners; take the matter to the High Court and then, if unhappy with the High Court, take up the matter with the Court of Appeal.

Then, presumably, they could ultimately go to the European Court.

There is a significant number of avenues for appeal, even under these streamlined proposals. It is about trying to strike an appropriate balance in terms of the right of the citizen on the one hand, and an efficient system on the other. In a sense, that is what we are discussing here. As Mr. O'Leary has said, we remain open to suggestions and this is the usefulness of this process, to hear people's ideas and concerns. We are at heads of Bill stage. There is a balance to be struck between the appeal process being fair and the length of the appeal process. I think Mr. O'Leary has articulated well the length of some of the appeals at the moment.