In his opening statement to the Public Accounts Committee Hearing on 8 December 2005, Revenue Chairman, Frank Daly commented on audit activity in the Construction Sector. He commented:

• “In 2004 for example we devoted 18.6% of our audit programme activity to the industry and carried out 3,036 audits across all our main programmes out of a total of 16,321 audits. Those audits yielded approximately €57 million out of a total audit yield of €549.6 million, amounting to 10% of the total audit yield recovered in 2004. Approximately 45% of the 3,036 audits were nil yielding, a figure that is not out of line with the percentage of nil yielding audits across all programmes.
• Our focus on construction continued in 2005 with up to 20% of audit and compliance interventions being targeted on the construction sector. Up to the end of October 2005 we had carried out over 4,400 compliance interventions in the sector yielding over €73m. Obviously that total will rise by year end We are just finalising our plans for 2006 and we will be targeting 25% of all our audit and compliance activities on the construction sector.”