I am advised by Revenue that the total cost of Section 481 tax credit per annum is shown on the Revenue statistics website at: https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/information-about-revenue/statistics/tax-expenditures/costs-expenditures.aspx.
The available information in respect of the numbers of staff employed is sourced from matching Corporation Tax returns against Employer returns. This information is only available for companies claiming the relief under the restructured credit available to producer companies since 2015.
The numbers directly employed by the top 12 claimants in 2015 was 363. Data for earlier years (prior to the restructuring of the scheme) is not available. The data for 2016 is currently being analysed and will be available in the coming months.