Vol. 217 No. 11
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £2,499,800 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1966, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, including certain other Services administered by that Office.
May I make a revolutionary intervention on this Vote to say that, although frequently the Revenue Commissioners are denounced for their ferocity and their general savagery of conduct, I should like to go on record as saying that in a long experience of public life I have never brought to the attention of the Revenue Commissioners any meritorious case that has not been considered in the most human and sympathetic way? Very often taxpayers have received, to my knowledge, invaluable assistance from the officers of the Revenue Commission to resolve problems for which they themselves or their advisers found it impossible to find a solution. It is a useful thing to record that experience in respect of a very distinguished branch of the public service which often comes in for a good deal of irrational criticism.
