The Ombudsman has made a blistering attack on the Revenue Commissioners over its approach to taxpayers it has wronged, branding as an "absolute disgrace" its treatment of vulnerable groups.
Mr Kevin Murphy made his withering criticisms in a speech to a conference last week on improving customer care in the Civil Service.
He accused the Revenue of ignoring recommendations from an Oireachtas Committee and from him; giving "disingenuous and possibly mischievous" reasons for their refusal to set right wrongs done by them; and of having an attitude to complainants that was "well past its sell by date".
If this attitude does not change the efforts to improve customer service, lauded by the Taoiseach at the same conference "will be nothing but a cosmetic PR exercise without any real commitment to putting things right when mistakes are made", he said.
Mr Murphy's comments represent the latest salvo in a running dispute between him and the Revenue Commissioners over the non-payment of compensation or interest to victims of Revenue maladministration.
The Revenue has said it needs a change in legislation to pay such compensation, and the Minister for Finance is examining the issue.
A Revenue spokesman said yesterday that the Revenue had said it had no difficulty with the principle of paying compensation in certain cases, but that their legal advice was that legislation was required.
However, Mr Murphy insisted that a new law was not necessary. He said the Revenue Commissioners were alone among Government Departments, health boards and local authorities in not committing themselves to paying compensation for loss in value where public bodies are responsible for the delay in payments.
He said this was despite an Oireachtas Committee recommendation that the Revenue Commissioners should bring forward proposals to compensate individuals and companies where Revenue make mistakes which cost taxpayers money.
"There is no indication that Revenue intends to give effect to the committee's recommendation," he said.
He gave the example of widows of public servants who had been wrongly taxed up to 1988 on the pensions payable to their children.
The case was "open and shut", he said. "There was no doubt that lengthy delays in the making of refunds of tax wrongly raised were due solely or significantly to maladministration on Revenue's part."
Yet the Revenue had refused to pay full arrears of overpaid tax, they had conceded that this was wrong, and yet were still refusing to pay compensation for loss in value.
His second recommendation related to the introduction of a compensation scheme on the lines of that already operated by the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
He had not wanted the Revenue to compensate taxpayers in routine cases where overpaid tax was refunded, but only in cases where maladministration had occurred.
He said his recommendation - that compensation be paid only in cases of maladministration - had then been misrepresented both in the Revenue Commissioners' response to his recommendation and in a Dáil response given by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
Both the Revenue and Mr McCreevy had suggested that the Ombudsman had proposed a "general interest scheme", and that this could have substantial Exchequer implications.
"I did not recommend a general interest scheme," said Mr Murphy. "My recommendation related solely to cases...where the Revenue was solely or significantly at fault."