Mairead Hayes of the Senior Citizens Parliament explained to RTE 1’s  Frontline last night how some of her her members (both living and dead) were targeted by the revenue.

Mairead Hayes: “The situations is, what people are saying to us is: ‘I rang the Revenue. They told me immediately I don’t owe anything. So I’m happy, but I’m telling you because it would be interesting to know how many people are going to eventually pay.’
“There are some people who are telling us that there’s a particular point when a spouse goes over 66 that people are due to pay money. And I think we have about six letters on file where people went into Revenue, told them, got their refund for that year and then the next year, I don’t know if you’re aware but there were no letters, there were no certs sent out in 2009 and 2010 because of an efficiency programme. So most people didn’t get this tax cert.
“What happened was if you went to a tax advisor and asked them, they would advise you ‘go and ask Revenue for a cert’ but if you were an ordinary Joe Soap who didn’t do that, what effectively happened was, it appears, that they reverted back to your old figure even though you had given them the new figure. So it seems that the people who pay the refund don’t talk to the people who issue the certs. Now, as well as that, I have to say, and this is very sad, but I know of two people who were bereaved in 2011 and they got letters.”

Pat Kenny: “Even though they have been in receipt of a State burial ground or something like that.”

Hayes: “Yes a State bereavement ground and their pension payment was cut off after six weeks.”

Kenny: “So one arm of Government knew very well that they were bereaved…”

Hayes: “Totally knew…”

Kenny: “…and somehow the other arm of Government, even though the computers were talking to each other, they didn’t know.”

Hayes: “Yes.”

Watch here

Earlier: Alienation And Confusion