Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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116. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will provide the details of the contract with Abtran to run the local property tax help line; the cost of a call to this help line when calling from a mobile phone; his views on whether the outsourcing of this service is appropriate in view of the revelations with regards to an employee abusing credit card details; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23982/13]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the introduction of the Local Property Tax (LPT) represents a significant administrative challenge. It is the largest implementation of a self-assessment tax system in the history of the State. As a new service that will have exceptional temporary pressures at particular stages of its initial implementation, it was difficult to predict the level of contact during the introductory phase and consequently, the resources required to handle queries from members of the public. Revenue considered a number of options for the provision of a phone call service to handle queries from members of the public. It was necessary to ensure that the introduction of LPT would not adversely affect Revenue’s capacity to deliver for the Exchequer in relation to their overall priority of maintaining and improving levels of compliance across the range of taxes and duties.

Following an open competitive tendering process, the contract was awarded to Abtran. As part of the contract Abtran must meet Revenue customer service standards as well as industry ISO and PCI standards. To ensure the standards are met and maintained, both in English and Irish, Revenue provided training and training material and maintains a presence in Abtran on an on-going basis.

The conditions of the agreement between Abtran and Revenue require the company to specifically:

1.Deliver information and assistance to taxpayers having difficulty understanding Local Property Tax (LPT) and completing their returns and making payments.

2. Assist taxpayers to navigate a new online system for filing returns and payments for LPT.

3. Escalate calls to a Revenue call service where taxpayer specific information is required to resolve the call.

4. Make outbound calls to taxpayers with information on their Property Tax queries where requested by Revenue to do so.

5. Provide telephony infrastructure and supports to allow direct transfer to Revenue

6. Provide support services and resources including account management and quality control

I am advised that cost of the service to Revenue is dependent on the volume of calls handled and that a total of €67,000 was spent on the service delivery during Q1 2013. Revenue publishes quarterly lists of payments to suppliers over €20,000 and the continued cost of the call service will be published on that basis. In regard to the Deputy’s question on the cost of calls to the Helpline I am informed that the price is dependent on the individual’s phone network as well as the type of ‘phone package’ that the individual has with his/her operator.

In regard to the issue of credit card abuse by an employee of Abtran, I am advised by Revenue that the issue was first brought to its attention late on Thursday night 9 May 2013. The issue related to people who filed and paid via telephone through the LPT Helpline and who used credit or debit cards as the payment method. In total, the details of 11 credit/debit cards were improperly obtained by an ‘unauthorised’ Abtran employee. The incident did not impact on anybody who filed and paid via computer nor did it affect any of the other available payment options for Local Property Tax (LPT).

I am assured that Revenue is extremely concerned about the incident and has been in constant contact with the company at a senior level since the incident occurred. I am informed that the matter is now in the hands of the Gardaí and in the circumstances it would not be appropriate to comment further on that aspect of the matter. None of the card holders suffered any financial loss.

In regard to security, Abtran was able to very quickly identify the person responsible for the inappropriate access because it has very sophisticated call management and recording systems available to log all calls. On concluding its investigation, Abtran assured Revenue that the incident was an isolated matter relating to a single individual. It was not related to any technology or systems breach and was not related to the secure on-line payments system for LPT.

When Revenue extended the facility to file and pay on-line, via the LPT Helpline, special arrangements were put in place with Abtran in line with best practice, including setting up a filing team who are located in a ‘clean’ and secure environment with additional monitoring features, who do not have access to mobile phones or any other facility to record personal or payment details. The person in question was not a member of this team and had no authority to request any payment details from customers.

Since the incident also constituted a data breach, Revenue reported it to the office of the Data Protection Commissioner on Friday and is receiving advice from that office.

Revenue would like to reassure people that payment of tax by either credit or debit card is completely secure and that in the unlikely event of any illegal access, the card owner will not suffer any loss.

Finally, I commend Revenue for its very swift response to the incident.