The Irish Revenue has this year recruited more than 100 additional staff to undertake audit and compliance activities.

Prior to his retirement as Finance Minister, Michael Noonan was asked to provide parliament with information on the Revenue staff resources allocated to tax audit and investigation activities.

Answering a written parliamentary question, Noonan said that the Government’s 2017 Estimates provided an additional EUR5m (USD5.6m) to Revenue to hire an additional 50 staff for audit and investigation activities and to enhance the capacity of Revenue’s data matching and data analytics technology. “It was estimated that the total yield in 2017 for this additional resource and tackling offshore tax evasion would be EUR80m,” he added.

Revenue has advised Noonan that it has recruited more than 100 Executive Officers to date in 2017. Of these, 65 went into a comprehensive two-year audit training program, with the rest taking part in an accelerated audit training program. Revenue expects that these staff will commence full-time audit and compliance activities from mid-2017.

There are currently around 400 Revenue staff at various stages of audit training. Noonan said that Revenue plans to recruit around 150 Executive Officers a year over the next five years, with the majority going into audit training.