Mr. Mark O'Mahony:

They are generally high level. We asked for one assistant secretary, two principal officers, one assistant principal officer, one higher executive officer, one executive officer and four clerical officers. We said in February, as the situation was becoming clearer to us, that we needed more case managers. We have three case managers appointed. We are optimistic about what they will be able to achieve. We hope that they will lift much of the more routine case management work from us.

We have plans to introduce a two-tier case system which is something our equivalent body in the UK has done. They have simple appeals and complex appeals and they are processed differently with more resources and effort going into the more complex or high-value appeals. We have plans to introduce that system but we need more staff to do that and in particular we need more case managers. We would like to have more case managers and we would particularly like some case managers with legal qualifications. Our existing case managers are all chartered tax advisers with at least five years-----