Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 2 December 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 9 - Revenue Commissioners
Chapter 12 - Controls over the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme
Chapter 13 - Revenue's Management of Suspicious Transactions Reports

9:30 am

Mr. Niall Cody:

We are certainly very concerned. In the context of the professional services, particularly at the low-income end where the power relationship is very unequal, certainly we would have seen some trends in relation to non-Irish nationals being in a structure. I need to be very careful here because there are a limited number of agencies involved. There are a limited number of companies and I need to be aware of taxpayer confidentiality. I would be concerned that there are abuses, not in all cases, but certainly if we go back long enough on the construction side there were fairly high-profile cases involving non-Irish workers but using some structures that I would be very uncomfortable with. We would look at the risks in those areas and our evidence to date is that it is not widespread, but it does exist.