Cowen opens Revenue office in Athy

The Minister for Finance Brian Cowen opened the new decentralised office for the Revenue Commissioners in Athy today.

The office, in Athy Business Campus will see 44 revenue staff working there since they moved to the area in December.

A further 25 staff will join them early next year.

Athy will see 250 staff located to the office in the fullness of time.

The work the staff will undertake include corporation tax and capital gains tax matters, c2 certificates, tax clearance certificates, and customs and excise duties. It will also have responsibility for capital acquisition tax in respect of all taxpayers in the east/south east region and a regional PAYE operation.

Speaking at the opening Mr Cowen said: "This decentralisation programme has at its core the challenging task of transferring some 10,900 public and civil servants to 59 towns outside of Dublin.

"Over 50 civil and public service organisations, some of our most important public services, are involved and I am happy to acknowledge the positive way that Revenue has embraced the decentralisation challenge. Indeed, while meeting this challenge it has also taken the opportunity to maximise the business reengineering opportunities that this decentralisation project has afforded"

The chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, Mr Frank Daly said: "The key functions we are bringing here to Athy today are a clear demonstration of Revenue's positive view of the policy of Decentralisation. That positive view is based, not on theory or case studies but on the real experience of our earlier Decentralisation programmes - these earlier programmes worked for staff and they worked for Revenue."