Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2019
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source
I thank the Minister, the Minister of State and their officials for attending.
I will start my with Brexit. The Minister wrote to me during the week regarding an issue I raised during Question Time in the Dáil recently regarding the number of customs officials that Revenue has recruited so far. As of 11 February, 230 additional staff had been appointed. Revenue has confirmed that in a no-deal scenario, it will need 600 additional staff. When Niall Cody, chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, was before the committee recently, he stated that under the central-case scenario, the requirement would be 600 additional staff from January 2021 but that, in the event of a hard, no-deal Brexit, this would have to be brought forward in order to have the staff in place as quickly as possible in 2019.
The reality is that we now have 230 and we may need 600 in five weeks' time. Will the Minister update the committee about where we are with that? It is a concern with regard to our state of preparedness as 230 is only about 40% of the required number in a no-deal Brexit scenario, which we hope does not happen, though it may.
No comments