Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Okay. I have aired that point. It is important because we are all talking about contacting Revenue and there is a scam going on in that regard. The poor person making the phone call is the one who pays for it.

Paragraph 6.3, at the bottom of page 18, has a small but interesting point in regard to compensation and legal costs. Under the heading "Claims by members of the public", there have been 25 claims and Revenue's legal costs were €33,000, which is an average of €1,320. The legal costs awarded, presumably from the other side, were €166,000, giving an average of €6,640. The amount of compensation awarded was €86,000 in the 25 cases, an average of €3,440. Therefore, the legal costs averaged €7,960 and the compensation awards were €3,440. This means 30% of the total cost of €285,000 was compensation and 70% was legal costs. We know who is the winner there, simple as that, although somebody must have had some sort of fall or slip. What is the nature of this? It really puts this into focus that, in the entire year, out of the total payments in respect of compensation and legal costs, 70% was legal costs and only 30% compensation, although I am not blaming Revenue's solicitor. It would almost pay Revenue to tell them to go away when they send in a letter, although I say that flippantly, and I know it has to fight the case.