Ms Josephine Feehily:

It is important to distinguish between the deferrals and the new provision in the Bill. The deferrals are on a self-assessment basis so if people have lost their jobs last year or filled in a tax return last year, certainly they will claim a deferral on the basis of the thresholds we already mentioned and we will have that data and will risk-assess, using that data, in due course. The new provision refers to "significant" and "unexpected". The "unexpected" part means that the data is most unlikely to be anywhere, given the prior-year arrangement with tax returns, income tax and so on. Last year's information could hardly be regarded as "unexpected" this year. We have to work out what this provision means.

The dilemma I face with this is that I have an Act which specifies the terms under which people should pay and should get a deferral or an exemption. Now I am overlaying onto that something which is a little different but it cannot be different to what is already in the law. It cannot add to the legislation. As a Revenue Commissioner, I am not allowed to turn an exemption limit into something that is not contained in the law. I cannot turn something into a multiple of the exemption limit. It is a very narrow provision and uses language like "significant" and "unexpected" hardship. The first thing a person will have to clarify is why the hardship was "unexpected". We will have to come up with definitions for those words and that is the guidance I am working on at the moment. With those definitions will come requests for information to support the contention that the hardship was "significant" or "unexpected". In other words, if a person knew it last year, then it cannot be "unexpected".