Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. He is correct, it is not an amnesty. People coming forward under the voluntary disclosure regime will still have to pay their taxes and any fines that might also be added - in other words, taxes, penalties and interest - under the voluntary process. The Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners has expressed his serious concern that shortening the timeframe to a date earlier than May could prove counter-productive. He said that tax defaulters need time to assemble the necessary information to make a proper disclosure and if they do not have time to do so, they will have no incentive to do anything other than wait for and hope that Revenue will for some reason fail to find them. This in turn, will mean a far less productive use of Revenue resources as the Commissioners will have to pursue every offshore case individually.