Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I am sure the Minister is tired listening to the same arguments, so I will try to be simple and brief. On Committee Stage, the Minister responded passionately in regard to Revenue's efforts to advise citizens of their entitlements to claims for tax credits, refunds, rebates and so on. In my experience, the overwhelming numbers of ordinary citizens who broadly come from the lower middle income bracket do not avail of their entitlements to tax credits, refunds and rebates.

Try as the Minister must in his position to defend the effort in place, I ask him to take a more open view, recognise this factual situation and encourage a re-examination of the methodologies already employed. Greater proactivity is needed. People broadly view Revenue as an inanimate body. It has no public face and nobody knows what people working in it look like as they never meet them. In my region, the office is located in Dundalk. If an outreach effort was made, even every 12 months or couple of years, where people from Revenue visited the different population centres in the regions and invited ordinary citizens to attend——

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