Committee of Public Accounts to examine 2020 Appropriation Account and C&AG’s reports with Revenue Commissioners

The meeting in Committee Room 3 of Leinster House will be joined by the C&AG, Seamus McCarthy, and will be split into two sessions.

The morning session, from 9.30am-12.30pm, will be with officials from the Revenue led by Niall Cody, Chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, and will examine:

• Appropriation Account 2020 (Vote 9 Office of the Revenue Commissioners);
• Account of the Receipt of the Revenue of the State collected by the Revenue Commissioners 2020;
• C&AG Report 2020 – Chapter 12: Controls over the temporary wage subsidy scheme;
• C&AG Report 2020 – Chapter 13: Revenue’s management of suspicious transaction reports.

During the afternoon session, the Committee will consider the Minutes of its meeting of 25 November 2021, Accounts and Statements, Correspondence, its Work Programme and any other business.

PAC Cathaoirleach Deputy Brian Stanley said: “The Revenue Commissioners are tasked with fairly and efficiently collecting taxes and duties due to the State and implementing customs controls. Matters the Committee will examine include debt warehousing of taxes due to COVID-19, the impact of Brexit since January 1, 2021, procurement compliance, and the implementation of previous recommendations made by PAC.

“Members also wish to examine two chapters from the C&AG’s 2020 Annual Report relating to the Revenue Commissioners. The first report involves Revenue’s oversight of the temporary wage subsidy scheme, which was set up to help businesses affected by COVID-19 to keep employees on the payroll during the early part of the pandemic. The scheme ran for 22 weeks from March to the end of August 2020 and saw some €2.8 billion paid out to support 678,000 employees in more than 66,000 enterprises.

“The second report examines Revenue’s management of suspicious transaction reports. This concerns the requirement by financial institutions and certain other bodies to report to Revenue where they have suspicions of terrorist financing or money laundering, including the laundering of proceeds for tax evasion. The Committee looks forward to engaging with Mr Cody and his officials on the Revenue account, the Appropriation Account, the reports and related matters.”

The meeting in Committee Room 3 can be viewed live on Oireachtas TV.

PAC is a standing committee of Dáil Éireann which focuses on ensuring public services are run efficiently and achieve value for money.

Committee proceedings can also be viewed on the Houses of the Oireachtas Smartphone App, available for Apple and Android devices.