Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In my Budget Statement I signalled an increase in Revenue reserves as one of the elements of the corporate tax reform roadmap which would reflect Revenue's role as a competent authority and recognise the many changes taking place globally in corporate tax. I fully support Revenue's proactive approach in sourcing the skilled professionals and technical expertise required to allow it to deliver on the challenging role it has. I believe there were only two people in that division of Revenue. As so much foreign direct investment is coming into Ireland now a staff complement of two, no matter how expert, was insufficient to service the level of inquiries dealing with the corporate sector. As the sector is growing rapidly, there is even greater pressure. One of the statements made by the Government on budget day was to the effect that the corporate tax roadmap would reflect the role of Revenue as the competent authority for corporation tax and that the Government would staff it to the level that it believed was required. It was another area that was totally under-resourced and there were bottlenecks emerging as a result of that. Since my days as Chair of the PAC I have found as a general rule of thumb that extra staff in Revenue usually pay for themselves.