Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Prior to that, 2,700 additional legacy cases came from the Revenue Commissioners. Staff were tied up across the country in the Revenue Commissioners' local tax offices working on these cases. These cases have effectively been shipped on to the Tax Appeals Commission. There is a staffing problem here. What was happening in reality was that an appeal was made, a telephone call was made by the tax agent or accountant representing the appellant, who probably knew who the inspector was and who had been dealing with him or her on a daily basis. Discussions were ongoing on cases. A lot of them were pulled out of the appeals process. It was the way it worked.

The problem now is that everything has left the Revenue and the staff who were dealing with it at each individual district are no longer doing so, as the entire process has gone over to the Tax Appeals Commission. My worry is that this will end up by becoming a slow, tedious process that is legal and not practical in nature. I worry that we are creating something here that is unworkable and bureaucratic. The previous system might be described as being inefficient. How do we as a committee get reassurance that we do not suddenly have a situation developing where barristers or solicitors appearing before the Tax Appeals Commission becomes the norm for clients? This should not be the case. It may end up becoming another form of a court, as distinct from being something that will assist people getting cases heard. One will have the hard cases but they will end up in the courts in any event. My concern is that there will be unintended consequences in setting up new bodies in which the mechanisms are foolproof but are utterly bureaucratic and legal in nature and where we do not get the outcomes we seek. I hope that will feed into the questioning.