The Minister did not reply to my question. I understood that 518 posts have been suppressed. The Minister says that 647 were suppressed. I asked him if it was correct that 120 tax posts were included in this figure, and he said no. Could the Minister tell me how many tax posts have been lost?

I have given the Deputy the information that in July 1981 to the end of December 1983, 647 posts were suppressed.

Some of those were clerical posts.

One hundred and sixteen further posts were embargoed between 1 January 1984 and 3 October 1984. As against that, an extra 324 posts were allocated to the Revenue Commissioners and a further levy of 104 extra staff were made available to the Revenue Commissioners over that period. The net situation is that in July 1981 there were 7,363 persons serving in the Revenue Commissioners. The current staffing level is 7,028.