Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I sincerely thank the Senators who contributed to this debate and, indeed, for the broad welcome that all Senators have given to this reforming legislation.

The reform of the tax appeal system will bring positive reform of the role, the functions and the structure of the Office of the Appeals Commissioner and of the tax appeals system. It will serve a dual function: first, in providing transparency and increased certainty for taxpayers; and, second, bringing about an enhanced and cost-effective appeal mechanism for taxpayers and for the Exchequer. It is timely to proceed with this reform process which will see appeals being brought through the initial stages in a more streamlined fashion with enhanced case management procedures to facilitate a more efficient and structured flow of appeals.

In my opening speech, I have already gone through the improvements and the various sections of the Bill and in the time available to me, I will focus on the two issues of concern that have been raised during Second Stage, on which there are Committee Stage amendments from Senator Reilly.

In relation to the hearings in public, I share the view that the pre-legislative scrutiny stage was valid and helpful in teasing out and discussing a number of issues and hearing from stakeholders. The Senator is correct that the Minister, Deputy Noonan, when he originally published this Bill, envisaged a situation whereby all appeals would be in public. However, there were, I will accept, diverse but strong views at the committee on the unintended negative consequences this could have. Senators Hayden and Michael D'Arcy articulated them. This is a small country. We do not want to have an appeals system that would in any way discourage persons from their right of appealing a decision of the Revenue Commissioners and while the default position in the legislation will be for public hearings, on application by an appellant for a hearing or part of a hearing to be held in private, that will be granted. That is the balance the Minister is trying to achieve in this legislation. He believes and I believe that this will meet the concerns of stakeholders, particularly as voiced by a number of Members of the Houses at pre-legislative stage on behalf of small business people. For example, small shopkeepers could find themselves in a public hearing with their customers in attendance, with material from the hearing being reported locally, and such publicity could undermine their business even if the appeal was upheld. It is a balance we are trying to achieve here. The publication of determinations will be valid and important in terms of increased transparency.

In relation to the issue of the Circuit Court, I refer Senators to a Supreme Court judgment in 1997 in the case Henry Denny and Sons (Ireland) Limited v. the Minister for Social Welfare. It is a particularly relevant quote which I wish to put on the record of the House. It states:

I believe it would be desirable to take this opportunity of expressing the view that the courts should be slow to interfere with the decisions of expert administrative tribunals. Where conclusions are based upon an identifiable error of law or an unsustainable finding of fact by a tribunal such conclusions must be corrected. Otherwise, it should be recognised that tribunals which have been given statutory tasks to perform and exercise their functions, as is now usually the case, with a high degree of expertise and provide coherent and balanced judgments on the evidence and arguments heard by them it should not be necessary for the courts to review their decisions by way of appeal or judicial review.

This is a message from the courts, one might argue, to the Oireachtas about the role of expert administrative tribunals. What we are trying to do in this legislation is further ensure that taxpayers, when they take an appeal, have an opportunity to appeal to an independent expert administrative tribunal that will have a level of expertise, with no disrespect to the courts, that the Circuit Court itself would not profess to necessarily have in tax matters.

I take the point that Senator Hayden raised in relation to cost and the cost of a High Court hearing obviously being more than the cost of a Circuit Court hearing. While some of the costs that I have heard bandied about in other parts of this debate are not quite accurate, I appreciate that the high cost may be a barrier to participation but it must be pointed out that even if we were to retain the Circuit Court stage, it would remain open to the Revenue Commissioners to appeal the Circuit Court stage, if they lost, to the High Court, and the idea that the taxpayer may not find himself or herself in the High Court does not really stand up to scrutiny in that regard as well.

The intention of this Bill is to produce reforms which will ensure a more robust, transparent and streamlined tax appeal procedure. In my view, a route of appeal from the reformed Appeal Commissioners stage to the Circuit Court does not make sense and it is not one that the Minister could stand over. The Appeal Commissioners are the specialist expert tax tribunal and the Minister is determined that this status be acknowledged and, where possible, even strengthened.

Furthermore, the current tax appeals process is out of step with the procedures of other expert appellant tribunals. Some examples of decisions made by public bodies that can be appealed only by way of an appeal to the High Court on points of law are decisions made by An Bord Pleanála, the Financial Services Ombudsman, the Information Commissioner, the Irish Financial Services Appeals Tribunal, the Labour Court, the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, the Rent Tribunal, the Social Welfare Appeals Office, the Tenancy Tribunal of the Private Residential Tenancies Board, the Valuation Tribunal in respect of commercial rates and the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, where unfair dismissal cases were appealable from the Employment Appeals Tribunal to the Circuit Court but this, too, has now ceased following the WRC's recent establishment. The Houses have considered these issues on many occasions and, I would contend, have favoured establishing the expert independent administrative route to a tribunal rather than the Circuit Court route. I hope I am explaining, even though we may not fully agree on this, the rationale behind our thinking in that regard.

In the interests of absolute clarity, I need to point out that the 90 days that have been referred to throughout this Bill is not a target for processing an appeal. The 90-day time limit is for the publication of the determination after the Appeal Commissioner has made the determination. There is no time limit for processing appeals because each case will be different and the Appeal Commissioners have to be given the space to deal with issues based on the complexity.

On the point Senator Quinn made, I will certainly read that report. The Senator is correct that as we move into a recovering economy it is important that we keep our relentless pursuit of making this a good country in which to do business. I will certainly consider those recommendations and discuss them with colleagues.

The new commission will develop electronic case management systems. There may in time be greater facilities for dealing with claims online. It is certainly something I would like to see. In the interests of clarity, there is no specific requirement in the Bill to migrate all processes to electronic systems.

I am pleased with the broad welcome for the Bill by Senators. I thank the Senators who were involved in the pre-legislative stage and the officials from the Department of Finance and Revenue who have worked so hard on this legislation. I hope I have provided some clarity on the points of concern.