Mr. Seamus Coffey:

I will deal with the universal social charge first. Yes, we have been in contact with the Department of Finance about the apparent shortfall in tax revenues we have progressed through 2017. Yes, it does appear to be down to a forecasting issue relating to, first, the impact of the cuts that have been introduced for universal social charge in recent years and, second, the relationship between the receipts from the universal social charge and the changes in the underlying drivers, such as the wage growth and the labour growth we are seeing in the economy. We would not be hugely concerned but we think budgetary measures should be estimated correctly. It is not something we undertake. We know the Department and the Revenue Commissioners in particular have updated their models for 2018 on, so it is something that will be addressed. We do not know the scale of it. We think the shortfall in revenue at the year end may indicate the size of the error that was made. One error seems to have been a misallocation between PAYE and self-employed, in that it was expected more would be collected from PAYE as we progressed through the year and that less would be collected from the self-employed. There may be some correction in November when the self-assessed tax returns are submitted. I think by the end of the year we will see the impact but there is no doubt the Department and Revenue have admitted that the models were wrong and they have updated them for 2018.

On overall income tax receipts, we would not have concerns about their growth. The PAYE component of income tax is growing at 7% to 8% and then, separately, PRSI is also growing at 7% to 8%. It is important and we do think budgetary measures should be estimated correctly, but it is to be hoped that will improve from 2018 onwards.

On corporation tax, that is outside our remit for today. The report on corporation tax was not undertaken by the IFAC so I would not like to associate my colleagues with it. If the committee wishes to discuss it, I can come back to address it.