Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If I make a tax return, I am taken at my word. Well, I do not make tax returns because I am a PAYE worker, but if a self-employed person makes a tax return, Revenue takes his or her word for it, although it does spot audits. We should bear in mind the big money involved in taxation. In social welfare, people seeking a very small amount of money must provide bank statements. It can be very onerous nowadays to get a bank statement. It can take five or seven days. Then the Department keeps seeking updated records, as if the person looking for a new fridge or some other small item is suddenly going to come into a windfall of €100,000 or something like that. In proportion to the State expenditure, this is small stuff. There is very little understanding of the huge variation of personality and other issues that arise when one is dealing with the most vulnerable in trying to get information and so on. Is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul coming across that all the time? There is also the tyranny of the Department wanting everything online but many people wanting to do it on paper and so on.

May I make a final point?