Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. One of the key reforms being introduced, as the Deputy knows, is that the appeal commissioners will be required to publish on the Internet a report of all their determinations. A report will have to state whether an appellant has requested that a statement of the case be prepared by the appeal commissioners in regard to the making of an appeal to the High Court against the appeal commissioner determination. This will provide an indication to all that determinations may be revised by the courts at a later stage.

Deputy McGrath has proposed that the published reports of the appeal commissioners should also contain whatever determinations a court or courts subsequently make relating to an appeal. I can see the potential benefit of this proposal in making available the full picture for each appeal. However, I can also see that it would be impractical to implement and an onerous burden on the appeal commissioners. The appeal commissioners are responsible for their own stage of the appeals process and, with the limited exception of whether the High Court might refer an appeal back to them for determination, cease to have any involvement in an appeal after it has been determined by them. It may take several years, as the Deputy would appreciate, for an appeal to be finally determined by the courts.

The parties to any court proceedings are the Revenue Commissioners and the taxpayer. The appeal commissioners are not a notice party to a subsequent appeal to the courts and will not be aware of any subsequent court proceedings or decisions of if the party settled the matter by agreement among themselves. There is no obligation on the courts to notify the appeal commissioners of their judgment and it is not appropriate that they be required to do so. In the normal course of events, court decisions are published by the Courts Service and the public has access to the decisions at that stage. I am not in a position to accept the Deputy's amendment but I reiterate that when the appeal commissioners publish a determination, they will have to indicate at that stage if they have been asked to prepare a case by the appeal commissioners to make an appeal to the High Court.