Vol. 412 No. 5
106 Mr. Finucane asked the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the fact that members of the business community are having difficulty in getting through by telephone to the VAT refund section of the office of the Revenue Commissioners; if he has satisfied himself with the telephone service provided there; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that they are acutely conscious of the need to provide to the business community the best possible VAT repayment service.
The volume of telephone inquiries to the VAT repayment section has traditionally been very high. While the response to telephone queries may appear to be poor, it should be noted that each query takes a long time to deal with because of the physical difficulty of determining what stage a claim has reached. The claim moves within the office at each stage of the process. If every member of staff were made available to answer telephones, the rate of processing would slow to an unacceptable level.
Substantial improvements have been made in recent years. The solution adopted was to set up a small unit to deal with inquiries, while concentrating on reducing the processing time of claims, so as to cut down on the number of telephone calls. This approach has been quite successful. As the processing time has reduced (81 per cent are now dealt with within ten days), the volume of inquiries has fallen. There is still scope for improvement, however.
A number of initiatives now in train are expected to lead to further reduction of the time taken to process claims during the course of 1992. These initiatives should also lead to a reduction in the number of telephone inquiries.
When an improved computer based claim monitoring system which is being developed becomes available in 1992 the Commissioners plan to install a telephone call queueing system to further enhance the telephone inquiry service provided.
Certain cases will of course always require more detailed examination and will take longer to process.
