Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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197. To ask the Minister for Finance if the reduction in public service hours by the Revenue Commissioners is a temporary measure or more permanent (details supplied). [45041/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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From the week commencing Monday 17th November 2014, Revenue's 1890 Stamp Duty phone service has been reduced to a Tuesday to Thursday, 10am to 1pm, service. The revised service hours form part of an overall review of customer service to Stamp Duty customers and follows on from Revenue's engagement with the primary users of the phone service, namely, the legal profession. The changes to the service were signalled to the Law Society of Ireland following a number of meetings with the Society on customer service matters in general. In addition, and as normal practice, a bulletin setting out the changes issued to both the Society and legal practices.

I am assured by the Revenue Commissioners that the provision of a quality customer service to Stamp Duty customers is a key corporate priority for Revenue.  Revenue is committed to ensuring that their service to customers is suitably tailored to meet demand levels and that a range of speedy and efficient information and contact channels for customers is available.  Revenue is also 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 through the availability of on-line services and, in so far as Stamp Duty is concerned, Revenue's e-Stamping system is now used by thousands of customers to conduct their business with Revenue.

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

I would add that as part of the review just mentioned Revenue is planning a suite of enhancements to improve service delivery, for example, improving navigation and search facilities on Revenue's website in relation to the main stamp duty queries currently being made by solicitors and others. In addition, Stamp Duty customers will have the option of sending e-mail queries to two new Stamp duty e-mail addresses based on the query type. This will facilitate a faster response time by Revenue to such queries. The review of customer service is an overall initiative to reduce the yearly number of 1890 calls (currently over 25,000 per year) and, in particular, to eliminate unnecessary calls, in order to allow for better targeting of scarce resources to facilitate an increased focus on compliance matters.

The opening hours of Revenue's 1890 Stamp Duty phone service will continue to be kept under review, having regard to demand for the service and the need to balance the deployment of resources across the range of Stamp Duty customer service and compliance functions.