Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 8 December 2022
Public Accounts Committee
Vote 9 - Office of the Revenue Commissioners
2021 Report of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners
2021 Report on the Accounts of the Public Services of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 15 - Collection of VAT on e-Commerce
Chapter 16 - Revenue's Suspension of Periodic Reviews of Tax Clearance Certificates
Chapter 17 - Overstatement of Certain Unallocated Tax Deposits
9:30 am
Mr. Niall Cody:
I share the Central Bank's concerns. Before the pandemic, our target was to have debt of less than €1 billion available for collection. That figure is now approximately €1.4 billion. That does not apply to warehoused debt. There is over €2.5 billion in the warehouse and another €1.5 billion or so is under appeal. Our target was to get that figure under €1 billion. We succeeded in 2019, 2018 and 2017. We have never before had a debt warehouse in the 100 years of the existence of the State. This is a new entity. We have to manage that debt portfolio of €2.5 billion. We want to actively manage that. We are realistic and know that some businesses will not be in a position to pay all of it. We know that some of it will lead to the new small companies administrative rescue process, SCARP, for business recovery. We know some of them will be written off.