Mr. Niall Cody:

They had not engaged by two days ago. There is €130 million for those cases over €50,000 and there are fewer than 800 such cases. There will be a clear concentration to see what that figure is left at. It is interesting that since we issued the letters last week, there has been engagement by people agreeing and putting forward proposals for a PPA. The thing that surprised me is that probably about €12 million has actually been paid in cash in the last week by people who had not engaged by the deadline. This has always been a feature of tax collection. There is a category of businesses that really wait until they are asked. I think we are all familiar with the idea of those who shout loudest, and you will have a whole raft of people looking for money from you.

I would point out - the Collector General also talks about this - that we suspended enforcement action in March 2020. That meant that for nearly three years, Revenue was not asking anybody to pay their tax liability.