Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for his reply. The criticisms made by the Irish Taxation Institute have a number of worrying dimensions which militate against the view that Revenue is improving its performance. For this reason, it is important to carefully examine the institute's concerns. The Minister adverted to its concern that a high proportion of those entitled to certain reliefs, including medical expenses, trade union subscriptions and nursing home expenses, do not claim them. In other words, Revenue is retaining moneys which do not rightfully belong to it.

The ITI also found a high level of dissatisfaction among professionals — more than 50% — with the refund service. They found high levels of dissatisfaction that the Revenue is not handling complaints satisfactorily. Those are three serious findings. Although the Minister has refused to do so in the past, I ask him once again to arrange for the Revenue Commissioners to undertake a properly based estimate of how much in tax allowances is not making its way to taxpayers. Information is power and the Revenue Commissioners have available to them all the returns of medical practitioners, nursing homes, trade unions and others. They know these values and could easily calculate the extent to which under-claiming occurs. That is the key to making a change. If the Revenue once recognised the scale of the problem, one would see a huge amount of change following from that, both in Revenue's willingness to deal with refunds and other complaints. That is the linchpin of change. I ask the Minister to reconsider his previous decision not to have the Revenue Commissioners undertake such a study.

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