My question relates to a PAYE taxpayer who is due a refund but is not getting it because of the failure of the employer concerned to co-operate with the Revenue Commissioners. What powers, if any, have the Revenue Commissioners to issue a refund to a taxpayer in that circumstance? Is there a policy of not prosecuting employers in those circumstances? I have a particular case in mind where a young person has been waiting more than eight months for a refund because of non-co-operation between the employer and the Revenue Commissioners.

In cases of that kind ultimately prosecution becomes the only instrument which the Revenue Commissioners have. Unfortunately, as the Deputy may know from previous correspondence which we have had on the issue, some of the cases of delays of the kind to which he has referred arise when an employer just disappears off the map, closes down operations in one location and goes elsewhere. The case to which the Deputy has referred may arise from those circumstances. The difficulty is that in such a case the Revenue Commissioners have no information on which to base their calculation of the refund. The only solution that can be found to that is to ensure, first, that employees make their claims for refund as quickly as possible after the event arises, so that if there is a difficulty in getting information from the employer we will at least know where the employer is before he has upped stakes and moved somewhere else.