Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am informed by Revenue that it continuously reviews its service channels and deploys its resources on an agile basis to meet demand ensuring optimum support to taxpayers throughout the year. Revenue allocates resources to best meet the demand of the various services provided.

The current arrangement is that the phone service operates from 9:30am to 1:30pm each day providing optimum allocation of available resources to deal with the volume of submissions through post and online as well as through the phone service.

During peak periods, queuing times can lengthen. To mitigate this, Revenue operates a callback facility on many helplines. This service offers customers the option of a callback when they do not wish to wait any longer in the helpline queue. Their place is held in the queue and once their place has been reached, they receive a call back from the system within 20 minutes, thus improving the customer experience. This measure helps to prevent excessively long wait times, ensuring that those who do connect can receive effective and timely assistance.

As the Deputy may be aware, the early months of each year place the highest demand on Revenue’s PAYE Services as taxpayers submit their income tax returns for the previous year, claim refunds or reliefs to which they may be entitled, and review tax credits for the current year. From 1 January to close of business on 29 January 2026, Revenue have advised me that the PAYE Helpline staff have answered over 63,611 calls (National PAYE Helpline & Carer’s Helpline) and processed over 92,070 items of correspondence received through its online services and postal system. Additionally, to date in 2026, Revenue have processed 599,559 PAYE Income tax returns, issued 629,067 Statements of Liability (SOLs), resulting in gross refunds of €472.4 million.

It is also worth noting that Revenue’s secure online MyEnquiries system, is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week and is user friendly.

Revenue have confirmed they are satisfied that its current deployment of resources provides an efficient and cost-effective service which meets taxpayer demands, across all its service channels.