Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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76. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will engage with the Revenue Commissioners to ensure that the revenue office in High Street, Tallaght, Dublin 24, remains open for business into the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43673/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I wish to refer the deputy to my reply to Dáil Question No. 271 of the 04/11/2014, Ref No: 40988/14, in which I stated that I am assured by the Revenue Commissioners that the provision of a quality customer service to taxpayers is a key corporate priority for Revenue.  Revenue is committed to ensuring that their service for all customers is suitably tailored to meet demand levels and that a range of speedy and efficient contact channels for customers is available. In addition, Revenue is committed to ensuring that the delivery of their customer service is as cost effective as possible for the Exchequer, having regard to the resources available and the need to balance the deployment of resources between service provision and the further key corporate priority of tackling non-compliance with tax and duty obligations.

In recent years, despite budgetary and resource constraints, Revenue has improved the delivery of customer services. In particular, Revenue's PAYE Anytime service is used by thousands of customers to conduct their business with Revenue. Revenue's On-Line Service (ROS) provides a similarly efficient service for business tax customers.  These on-line services (available at .) are designed to provide customers with quick, convenient and cost-effective ways of conducting business with Revenue.

Revenue is also fully committed to providing a quality service to those customers whose preference is to deal with them in person, for example:

- a regionalised lo-call telephone service is available for PAYE taxpayers. The Dublin Region contact number is 1890 333 425, and the contact numbers for the other Regions are available on www.revenue.ie. There are also phone helplines for business taxpayers and the respective contact details are communicated directly to those taxpayers, and are also easily accessible on .

- a correspondence service, with contact addresses for the respective Tax Districts also on www.revenue.ie.

- in the Dublin area, the Central Revenue Information Office (CRIO) has state-of-the-art facilities for dealing with customers who wish to carry out transactions face to face with a Revenue staff member. The CRIO is located at O'Connell St./Cathedral St., Dublin 1, and is open from 8.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m, Monday to Friday. The CRIO is convenient to all of the main public transport routes into Dublin city, and it has the capacity to deal with the current demand level for "walk-in" counter services by Revenue customers in the greater Dublin area.

As with any modern service provider, the Deputy will appreciate that good business practice requires Revenue to constantly review service delivery to ensure that they have the correct balance across the channels to suit demand levels and changing customer preferences. Accordingly, the opening hours of public offices and telephone services are subject to ongoing review in order to most effectively meet peaks and troughs of customer demand levels.

The vast majority of customers in Revenue's public offices have relatively straight forward informational enquiries, or wish to carry out routine transactions such as claiming tax credits or refunds. These transactions can be carried out much more effectively on-line or by telephone. With this increasing uptake in on-line and telephone transactions, the demand level in the Tallaght Revenue Information Office (TRIO) has been steadily declining, with a reduction of some 50% in the number of customers in recent years. The opening hours of the office have accordingly been adjusted in tandem with the reduced demand and in that context the office closed on 5 August last and reopened on 15 October.

In the lead-up to the closure, every effort was made to ensure that there would be no reduction in the quality of service to customers:

- Public notices were placed in TRIO to ensure customer awareness and to highlight the service alternatives;

- The TRIO staff liaised with the Tallaght Citizens Information Office and supplied that office with the most popular tax forms and leaflets;

- TRIO staff also pro-actively liaised with other local agencies and large local employers to advise them about the August closure and alternatives services to meet their needs.

Revenue is confident that customers in Tallaght will continue to receive the same high levels of customer service and the Dublin South County Tax District has been closely monitoring contacts from their customers.  In that context, it should be noted that with a view to managing a peak customer demand in the run up to the pay and file deadline for self assessed taxpayers, and the local property tax pay and file campaign, TRIO reopened on 15 October last to provide a morning only service from Wednesday to Friday, 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The ongoing provision of the TRIO service will kept under continuous review, having regard to demand for the service, seasonal or otherwise, the availability of resources and the need to balance the deployment of resources across the range of customer service and compliance functions.