I thank the Senator for raising this issue. I am very much aware of the frustration to which she refers. It is an issue that has been raised with me by my constituents. First, we must acknowledge how difficult it is for so many people to pay the tax. It is an entirely new category of taxation that represents a gigantic change from where we were before the crisis. With both of these points in mind, we must make it easy for people to deal and engage with the system, given that the vast majority want to pay. That is something that should be and is very important to the Government and the Revenue Commissioners.
Owing to the scale of the change introduced, it has prompted a huge response from the public as people seek to engage with the tax and understand their liability. The vast majority have been willing to pay the property tax. Revenue has answered in excess of 700,000 telephone calls and replied to in excess of 200,000 letters or e-mails since March. It has taken LPT from being a concept to a fully functioning tax in a short period, including the enactment of legislation, the construction of a brand new property register and the provision of a customer service for such a large volume of taxpayers. I am further advised that because the LPT is a new tax it is difficult to anticipate service volumes and, as a consequence, the number of agents required.
Revenue has acknowledged that exceptional delays in accessing the helpline, the primary contact point for LPT queries, were experienced by some callers in the days immediately following the issue of the 2014 notifications, in late October and early November. I expect that was the cause of at least some of the difficulties to which the Senator referred. Access was also hampered on an intermittent basis on those days by technical issues with the service provider's telephony system which have since been resolved.
In response to the demand for service, Revenue ensured significant extra resources were deployed to the helpline within two days of the peak period and also deployed extra resources to its own internal support service to cater for the more complex queries. Contingency plans have also been put in place to further rapidly increase the number of agents on the helpline should it be necessary to do so. In total, there are now 310 agents fully deployed to the LPT telephone call-handling service. In addition to the extra staff deployed, callers can now leave their telephone contact details on the system during busy periods in preference to waiting for service and will receive an out-of-hours call-back from the LPT team. Revenue also extended the helpline opening hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. from 6 to 14 November and has recommenced the extended hours for the peak filing period from 25 to 29 November, inclusive. It also extended the paper filing date by one week to 14 November to allow people additional time to arrange their 2014 payment method. The combined initiatives of additional deployments, extended opening hours and the extended paper deadline have already significantly reduced waiting times on the helpline and I am assured that even further resources will be made available should they be required.
The dedicated helpline to which the Senator refers is operated by a private sector call service company, Abtran. While every effort is made to assist the public in complying with their LPT obligations, Revenue observes strict data protection standards and is obliged to maintain and protect the integrity of internal confidential records. For that reason, the queries handled by Abtran include information on general aspects of all areas of the LPT, including payment methods, valuations, exemptions and deferrals. The external helpline also provides an online filing service to those wishing to file their returns and payments by telephone, provided the person requiring assistance has his or her property ID and PIN numbers to hand. Callers inquiring about their property register records or payment records must be transferred to the internal Revenue helpline in order that their records can be accessed and amended, if necessary. Likewise, if a person contacting the helpline does not have his or her property ID and PIN number available, he or she is referred to the internal helpline for assistance.
Again, the protection of data is paramount and Revenue has to ensure that property IDs and PINs are distributed securely.
The Senator also mentioned that wrong payments cannot be handled by the external helpline. This scenario usually occurs on foot of an incorrect property valuation. Persons wishing to change their declared property valuations are required to submit a request directly to Revenue together with supporting evidence and documentation.
I am advised that every effort has been made by Revenue to deal with the current high volume of calls. During the period from 24 October to 19 November 2013, Abtran handled 117,170 calls and the internal Revenue helpline handled 25,895 calls. Given the scale of the local property tax, LPT, operation and the level of demand for service around filing dates, it is inevitable that some delays are experienced in accessing services.
A key aspect of the service provided by Abtran is the flexibility to scale resources up and down in response to demand. With effect from mid-October there was a requirement to increase capacity to handle calls in regard to the 2014 filing dates and the number of agents engaged increased incrementally to the current levels. The number of agents employed was further increased this week to support the online filing date of 27 November. The number of Revenue staff engaged in the internal helpline increases in line with the external service staffing levels. Up to 80 Revenue staff members are now assigned to support the internal helpline and further contingency arrangements are in place for the filing date of 27 November.
Revenue has worked to reduce call waiting times. The average waiting time during October 2013 for the external helpline was six minutes and I am advised that the average waiting time for the external helpline is currently less than one minute. On peak filing days the average waiting time for the internal helpline was 15 to 18 minutes with longer waiting times occurring occasionally, while the waiting time for the internal helpline is currently averaging nine minutes. The longer waiting time for the internal service is directly related to the complexity of the issues raised by callers and to Revenue's commitment to resolve the issues and to fully satisfy the callers' requirements. I can confirm that callers were asked to call back at a later time during the peak filing period of 13, 14 and 15 November only. The call service was available until 8 p.m. on these dates and callers were advised to call later to avail of shorter waiting times for the internal helpline. The facility to leave a message requesting call-back from Revenue is also made available on a daily basis, particularly during busy periods.
I acknowledge the work done by the Revenue Commissioners in taking the LPT from concept to a fully functioning tax in such a short period of time, including the enacting of legislation, the building of a brand new property register, the provision of customer service to such a large volume of taxpayers and, crucially, the contribution of €215 million to date to the Exchequer. I also want to acknowledge, as I did at the outset, the great number of people who, despite the massive difficulty they face in their daily lives, have paid this new form of taxation. That has been difficult for many people. While this tax represents a major change in our tax system it has allowed us to ensure that further tax is not imposed on income and on work and that we can continue to build on our efforts to ensure our economy recovers. I emphasise that this has difficult for many people and acknowledge the difficulty they have gone through in paying this tax, and the other difficulties that I outlined.
