Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

I will do my best to deal with each of the questions in turn. I will begin with the question about the EU Presidency. As the Deputy is aware, we will take over responsibility for the Presidency of the European Union in the second half of next year. That staffing will be used for two purposes in particular: the first one will be for additional staff in my Department in Dublin, in the Department of Finance, to give us the ability to chair all of the different ECOFIN working groups that we will be responsible for.

Second, within the permanent representation that is located in Brussels, we have now begun to significantly increase the number of attachés that we will have there, again to deal with all the work that we will lead on behalf of the EU. It is all about providing the staff that will be needed to resource the countless working groups we will be responsible for. I know every Minister will talk about the amount of work that needs to be done under the EU Presidency, but the amount of work that will take place under the finance stream of it is considerable. We want to ensure that we can do it well on behalf of the country. They are the two areas the allocation will be used on. I thank the Deputy for raising the issue.

On the three other bodies that have come under the aegis of the Comptroller and Auditor General, I will look to my colleagues here. I have a line here explaining to me why it has changed but I have to find out which bodies the changes relate to. I will do that. I cannot give the Deputy the answer at the moment but I will certainly find out for him.

On salaries in the Revenue Commissioners, the increase is mainly due to the additional staff we are anticipating the office will continue to need as we move through next year. Currently, we are anticipating that we will have 7,050 whole-time equivalents working in Revenue for 2024. The additional pay figure that is there is a combination of two things: first, the additional people that we will need and, second, the impact of the pay agreement for those new people and for existing staff. I understand that, for example, some of the areas in which we will need to ensure we have the right level of staff in place include the implementation of the local property tax. I will be before the committee about that in the coming weeks.

My officials tell me that the €140,000 is a matter relating to appropriations-in-aid. As such, we will again have to come back to the Deputy on whether a particular item underpins that. There may not be, but we will find out for the Deputy.

With regard to tariffs and whether additional staff are needed for their collection, currently, we are confident that we have an adequate level of staffing in place to deal with the various developments that could take place on tariff policy across the year. It does depend on what will happen. For example, if we see very big changes in tariff levels or different sectors bearing different levels of tariffs, it is something that we will have to review. At the moment we believe the level of staffing in place is adequate to deal with those developments. It could well be the kind of issue we need to review during the year and then engage on again with the committee.