Ms Josephine Feehily:

We have received 638,000 returns as of this morning, which is about 40% of the total figure. We are very pleased as there are almost three weeks to go until the closing date or ultimate filing date and we had a standing start of a couple of weeks ago. Engagement with the tax has been very high. Notwithstanding public comment, much of this engagement has been positive in the sense that people who are engaging with the tax are simply looking for information and assurances rather than complaining. It is a new tax and we do not have a register with which to start. As I indicated to the committee in February, we foresaw some of the glitches, all of which have since arisen, and we are working our way through them. In the context of a Government decision taken at the end of July last year to ask Revenue to collect this tax at a time when we did not have a register, legislation, policy decisions or information technology, I am very pleased to find that at the end of quarter one, the Exchequer had received €1 million from the tax and that €22 million had been collected at the end of April. We now have 638,000 returns. I am pleased with the progress made.