Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 December 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Office of the Revenue Commissioners: Engagement

Mr. Niall Cody:

We keep adding on. Ms Kennedy could take about this at length because she developed the PAYE technology system and she knows this far better than I do. We have ambitious plans there and it is important for Ireland that we continue to be effective at what we are doing. That is one challenge.

We also have a challenge in continuing to attract people to join us who have the right skills. Some of these skills are not in the marketplace. When we started our transfer pricing process in 2010 we gradually built it up to now having a significant transfer pricing resource. Part of the challenge is that the nature of the Irish tax rate at the time meant there was not a core competence in the marketplace and so we have had to develop a lot of that ourselves. Obviously, we will lose some of them to tax practitioners. In recent years, the flow has not all been one way. We attract a lot of people in from the firms because we can give a quality of work and life, both of which are important. I welcome the Deputy’s consistent support in respect of what we need in order to do our job. That support is cross-party, and long may it continue.

I forget what the Deputy wanted me to finish on in the context of praising ourselves.