Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 28 September 2021

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:30 am

Photo of Brian StanleyBrian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. Measurements and pounds, shillings and pence. I thank the Deputies.

No. 753 from Mr. David Moloney, Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, dated 30 July, encloses the minute of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in response to the committee's report on the examination of the 2019 appropriation accounts of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners. The Minister responds to the recommendations in all of the committee's reports. In this case, we made five recommendations, two of which were accepted, one of which was partly accepted and two of which were not accepted.

Those accepted relate to a breakdown of individual taxes within the excise duty category in Revenue’s accounts, the temporary wage subsidy scheme and tackling bogus self-employment.

The first recommendation not accepted concerns a voluntary PAYE system agreed by Revenue and courier firms in March 1997, and this committee’s request for an independent investigation into the financial and sectoral implications of that agreement. Revenue states that the matter was discussed by the Committee of Public Accounts in 2000, that Revenue does not have the powers to set up and commission an independent investigation and there is no legal basis for it to do so.

The second concerns a 2019 EU Commission inspection report on the control strategy for customs values and repayments. We requested a copy of the report and Revenue’s reply. Revenue states that the audit has not been completed and that it does not have a timeframe for its completion. I suggest that we follow this up to request a copy of the material requested once the audit is completed and that we note and publish this correspondence. Is it agreed that we will follow up on looking for the audit report and that we will publish the correspondence? Agreed. I have flagged up this item for discussion, as did Deputies Catherine Murphy, Carthy and Munster. We call for a report on that in one of the five recommendations made. Basically, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is saying that it does not have the power to set up such an investigation. Some could take this as a refusal. The amount of money being lost is an important issue. That sector has exploded with online shopping and fast food delivery and so on over the past decade. There could be a very big loss there for the public purse. I suggest that we will write back to them and ask them what they can commission. I certainly would not be happy, as the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, to have a situation where there are potentially tens of millions of euro, or more, that should be going into the PRSI pension fund and which the State and the taxpayer is losing out on. I suggest that we would do that. I will now bring in the other Deputies who also had flagged this very important issue for the committee.

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