Official opening of the new Revenue Decentralised Office in Listowel
Address by Revenue Chairman Frank Daly
Minister, Mayor, Distinguished Guests and Colleagues
Listowel
"Beautiful Listowel, serenaded night and day by the gentle waters of the River Feale. Listowel where it is easier to write than not to write, Where first love never dies, and the tall streets hide the loveliness, the heartbreak and the moods, great and small, of all the gentle souls of a great and good community. Sweet, incomparable hometown that shaped and made me"
That's native son John B. Keane describing this market town and indeed what an appropriate testament it is to this unique place.
Welcome
We are absolutely delighted to be here today in this unique place and on behalf of my fellow Board members Commissioners Josephine Feehily and Michael O'Grady I welcome you to the official opening of the Revenue’s newest decentralised office.
This is an important day for Revenue – in particular it's an important day for the staff whose ambition to live and work here in Listowel is being realised. It's also no harm to remind ourselves that the opening of this Office today is important for the many people who will have an opportunity in the future to work and live here in Listowel – that presupposes of course that some here will move on and make room – how realistic that is when I look at the very youthful faces around I'm not sure!
I don't intend to speak for very long today but I do want to acknowledge the vision and the work that went into making today a reality.
Decentralisation
The current decentralisation programme was announced on 3 December 2003 by the then Minister for Finance, Mr. Charlie McCreevy. Since that time Revenue has been progressing its contribution to the overall programme, culminating in the official opening here today of our new office in Listowel. Yesterday, we had the official opening by Minister Noel Ahern of our new office in Kilrush, Co. Clare.
Decentralisation is nothing new to Revenue. Back in the early 90s we relocated a range of our functions to the Mid West Region in both Ennis and Nenagh. By 1994 we had relocated a large part of the Collector-General’s Office to Sarsfield House in Limerick which was a major project at the time as over 500 jobs moved from Dublin to the Mid West.
This latest phase of decentralisation has provided Revenue with the opportunity to consolidate and relocate some additional functions within the Mid-West Region. We now have virtually all the Collector-General's functions consolidated in the Mid-West region at our offices in Limerick, Nenagh, Kilrush and Listowel. Next year we will see the opening of a further office in Newcastle West in Limerick. At that stage the Collector General's will have consolidated all of its operations, apart from a small but very important part of its insolvency function, in the Mid-West Region.
As I mentioned, decentralisation is not new to us and each time we embark on it we maximise the value from Decentralisation by streamlining our operations and making sure that when they move to new locations they operate with maximum efficiency. For each and every Decentralisation project one of our core objectives also is to provide opportunities for a variety of interesting and challenging work for the staff moving to these new locations. I am happy to say that we have been able to deliver on both these fronts for Listowel are concerned.
The business in Listowel
The business being carried on here in Listowel covers core debt management activity for a portion of our customer base. Work here also includes collection activity on a national basis for a number of individual taxes such as the Plastic Bags E Levy, Deposit Interest Retention Tax and Professional Services Withholding Tax. Lastly the business operated here in the newly opened office includes some key internal and external support functions, including internal accounting and reconciliation functions and the payover of PRSI to the Depart of Social and Family Affairs.
Pay and File - a busy day
Some of my older colleagues (and there's not many of them around) tell me that was a time in Revenue when you would experience slack periods at work! Well I don’t think any of us see any of that anymore (if we ever did). Certainly the Collector General's Division does not see it! That Division is a key player within Revenue and as I speak today it is experiencing arguably its busiest period of the entire year as it deals with the with pay and file deadline for self-assessed taxpayers. While the great majority of self assessed taxpayers and their agents now file through our Revenue On-Line service, nevertheless those taxpayers or agents who are still paper filing had until midnight last night to lodge their return with the Collector General.
Approximately 120,000 paper F11 returns for the 2006 Tax Year were filed with the CGs Office in Limerick to date.
Yesterday alone, just over 13,000 forms were received in Sarsfield House up to midnight. I am advised by Gerry that there was a steady steam of callers to Sarsfield House last night, especially up to about 10.30 pm. The last return handed in was at approximately 11.59 pm !!
Approximately 6,000 returns were delivered by An Post to Sarsfield House by 9 am this morning. A further delivery is expected later in the day. These returns are all on time as we accept that returns with a postmark date of 31 October are filed on time.
Of course for those practitioners who are filing using the ROS system, they have until November 15th to complete the Pay and File process. Very encouraging to note that as of midnight last night 164,486 ROS returns had been received – up 14% on the same period last year.
That’s some work in a very short period and I thank all the Collector General's staff involved.
This gives me an opportunity once again to say how very lucky we are in Revenue with the quality of our staff – they epitomise for me the type of loyal effective Civil Servants with which this State is blessed – and who’s commitment is sometimes not sufficiently acknowledged.
A "good service experience"
I’ve spoken in the past about a core objective that each citizen dealing with Revenue (and by extension with the State) should have a "good service experience" – the interaction should be as pleasant, professional and effective as possible. There are of course a range of very important inputs to that "good service experience" – everything from innovative use of technology, continuous review of organisational structures; regular validation of processes; the redesign and renovation of our offices; consultation; listening and acting on complaints or suggestions for improvement – but no input is as important as the personal touch from knowledgeable, dedicated and friendly staff. I know the staff here in Listowel under local manager Michael Bambury will not be found wanting in this respect.
Thanks
Here in Listowel we now have a superb new office that we can all be proud of and indeed that will assist us in providing that "good service experience". It has taken the collective efforts of the staff here, Divisional management, staff in various parts of Revenue, especially Human Resources Division and Information Communications Technology and Logistics Division, the Office of Public Works and the developers Cilldarrig Enterprises to get us to this day. I would like to acknowledge this and thank everybody for their contribution in delivering this latest Revenue decentralised location and to such a high standard. You can be rightly proud of your endeavours today. A county like Kerry of course knows all about the importance of team effort and what can be achieved when it's at a high level. That team effort was well in evidence in the work towards making decentralisation to Listowel a reality.
Minister of State
Before concluding I would like to thank the Minister of State at the Department of Finance Noel Ahern TD for giving of his valuable time to be with us here today and to thank him for his continued support of Revenue and our programme of decentralisation, modernisation and simplification. The Minister has responsibility for the OPW and that Office, despite extremely busy demands on it right now, has been very supportive of Revenue in many building and modernisation projects over the years.
Good wishes
Finally I wish everybody who will work in this new office, a very successful and enjoyable career here. I was struck by the statement on the Listowel.ie webpage which says "A perfect place to live and work". We all rightly take great pride in our place of birth and we are all a bit biased when it comes to our perception of our place of origin, However, as everyone who has ever visited here Writers Week, the Races or maybe was just passing through to see the many sights of Kerry, the concept of Listowel as a perfect place to live and work is one we could not disagree with. It is great then that you have achieved your ambition of being able to work here. I know that through your collective enthusiasm and commitment to excellence in what you do, this Listowel office will play a significant part in ensuring Revenue delivers on its key objectives in the years ahead.
Thank You