Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

At the Deputy's request, I will reconsider that matter. The Revenue Commissioners' plan for the development of PAYE through their operations policy and evaluation division is managed by an assistant secretary and contains two substantial units which monitor daily performance of the PAYE system. It plans future improvements and provides a wide range of information leaflets and guides aimed at employers and workers using PAYE. In this context, setting up a new PAYE customer satisfaction unit would be wasteful duplication. The Deputy is obviously not aware of the large number of Revenue staff in place serving PAYE taxpayers. The latest figures available show there is a total of over 1,880 working in customer service areas. Of those, close to 800 are dedicated solely to the PAYE sector. That represents core numbers engaged in customer service duties for PAYE customers. At peak periods, however, temporary staff are recruited and existing staff are moved between functions to alleviate backlogs and speed up response times.

As regards customer satisfaction, I refer the Deputy to a Civil Service-wide survey conducted on behalf of the Department of the Taoiseach in March last year. It found that 78% of general public customers and 81% of business customers said they were "very" or "fairly satisfied" with the level of service provided. Since Revenue is such a significant point of contact for so many Civil Service customers, it is also gratifying for them and indicates a higher level of satisfaction with the staff and the standard of service being provided by that office than the Institute of Taxation's survey might suggest.

As has been said, however, this has been a constructive contribution to the debate and the interactive relationship between these bodies is good. From my discussions with the Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, which are reasonably regular as one would expect, I know he is focussed on ensuring that customer satisfaction is high and that people are happy with the level of service provided. There is a growing level of responsibility on Revenue, so staff pressures come into play as well, but we have been able to assist in that regard in recent times. The Chairman is not averse to trying to see what other improvements could be introduced in addition to what is already being done. In fairness, initiatives as reflected in the Finance Bill confirm there is a co-operative approach from Revenue in trying to assist in terms of consumer satisfaction.

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