Ms Josephine Feehily:

Every single year, when the Finance Acts are passed, the revenues of the State are placed in the care and management of the Revenue Commissioners. Care and management has never been judicially determined here but it has been judicially determined in the UK. What it means is that we have decisions to make which enable us to use the phrase "not to chase the last fourpence." We are entitled to use our judgment and expertise to decide which cases to settle, which cases not to settle and which cases to pursue. One cannot automate this kind of discussion. We could not function without that kind of power. Those are our care and management powers and they are repeated every single year by the Oireachtas.