Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would also like to welcome back our friend, Ms Jody Blake. We are delighted to see her back with her beautiful smile. I would also like to extend my sympathy to the Coghlan family and send my best wishes to my dear friend, Jimmy Harte, who is my neighbour down here in the back row.

I wish the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and the rugby authorities well in their bid to bring the rugby world cup to Ireland. It would be a great day for Ireland if we could get it and a great boost to the economy. Hopefully we will have good news on that front.

I would also like to speak today about the LPT helpline. On a number of occasions recently I have raised issues about the helpline and for some reason nobody there can answer my queries. I am basically raising this on behalf of the public because if I have these queries, so does the rest of the public. They must be having difficulty getting answers to simple questions. For example, one person who paid the tax last year cannot now pay it online for some reason. There is something outstanding and he cannot get into the system. One person paid a certain amount last year and should pay double this year, but has been told to pay treble the amount instead. These people cannot get answers to these questions. People are left waiting a very long time for a reply and when they receive a reply, they are often told that somebody will ring them back, but nobody does. I do not think the helpline is working very well on this occasion. All of these things will have teething problems, but this is the second year of it and it should be up and running by now. I intend to table this issue for the Adjournment debate but if it is not accepted, I would like the Minister to come in to the House to address the problem with us and try to fix things for the public.