Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The work is ongoing on designing the necessary returns, internal training and so on. Obviously the additional resources will have to be funded through the Revenue Vote on the expenditure side.

I thank the Deputy for his comments and his acknowledgement of the extraordinary amount of hard work. I strongly believe it is the correct policy decision overall, and I believe the Deputy does too. I thank Sinn Féin, as the main Opposition party, for its support on this issue. I believe it is strategically in our national interest to be part of the agreement. I pay tribute to my predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, who did an enormous amount of work in helping to negotiate, influence and shape the final outcome of the deal which is categorically in Ireland's interests. I join the Deputy in thanking all our officials in the Revenue Commissioners, all our public servants and my own team in the Department of Finance for the extraordinary amount of work on this issue which I know they have put in over many months. I thank all the committee members for their co-operation in respect of this section. I know we have some further work to do on remaining sections but it is an enormous piece of work that the system has helped to deliver and I want to acknowledge that.