Ms Josephine Feehily:

I was about to do so. The sector where we think there is a risk is goods where there is reasonably small volume and high value. In that sector we started a project which involved looking at 102 entities, between traders and suppliers, and have identified 17 missing traders. In these cases we have refused €7 million in VAT and raised €3.5 million in a VAT assessment. This is very recent information which I put together in the last day or two. Needless to say, there are appeals involved which will not be easily resolved. However, on the basis of the learning from this and also from two prosecution cases in the last year or two, we are looking at the motor vehicle sector. We have identified 18 traders in that sector for investigation. That is as far as it has gone. We have taken 12 of them out of the VAT system because that is the first line of defence on our part. The investigation is ongoing.

In the past year or so - I cannot remember precisely - we had two prosecutions in the motor vehicle sector for VAT fraud. The VAT at risk between the two was approximately €900,000. They were convicted and a custodial sentence was imposed in one case and a suspended sentence in the other. We are active once we get down to real cases. The learning from these audits and projects continually feeds back into our risk system to allow us to identify the hallmarks of risk.