Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 227: To ask the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the continuing complaints of long delays in tax offices, no reply on freephone numbers and continuing high level of errors in the tax allowance forms; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18234/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I am aware that some of Revenue's customer service areas have been under a lot of pressure in recent months, particularly those areas dealing with PAYE taxpayers.

The first quarter of each year is always exceptionally busy for Revenue's PAYE call centres, walk-in offices and staff dealing with correspondence. For example, in February, Revenue issued 2.2 million tax credit certificates for the 2006 tax year and this "bulk issue" naturally generated a very large volume of contacts. The first quarter is also the time most people request a balancing statement or lodge a rebate claim for the previous year. This year, the pressures were exacerbated by difficulties arising from a changeover to an entirely new computer system for PAYE taxpayers. This, unfortunately, gave rise to some errors in tax credit certificates.

In order to cope with this exceptionally busy period, Revenue assigned the greatest number of staff feasible to dealing with PAYE contacts. In addition they took on over 60 temporary staff. I am informed that, because of the large volumes of correspondence on hands, Revenue temporarily restricted their PAYE 1890 phone service hours to morning only — so as to clear correspondence backlogs in the afternoons. However, I understand that this temporary restriction did not, in fact, significantly reduce the overall number of PAYE phone queries being dealt with on a daily basis.

The work volume situation in Revenue offices is now returning to more manageable levels and full-day telephone service has been resumed. Queuing times in walk-in offices have also been reduced. For example, during the month of April, 80% of callers to the Dublin Central Revenue Inquiry Office were seen within 10 minutes.

I am informed that Revenue is planning a major expansion of PAYE self-service facilities this year. Later this month Revenue will start to roll out a range of both internet and telephony-based interactive self-service channels enabling PAYE taxpayers, for example, to make tax rebate claims online and make amendments to tax credits on a 24/7 basis. I am assured that these initiatives should significantly improve service to PAYE taxpayers.