The Comptroller and Auditor General has told the Public Accounts Committee that the annual forecasts of tax revenue by the Department of Finance are not accurate by international standards.
John Purcell said Ireland's scale of deviation on tax forecasts was high by international standards and that this might point to a weakness in the methodology.
He was referring to findings from the recently published report from the review group set up in 2006 to assess tax forecasting methodology.
Mr Purcell said tax receipts exceeded the forecast by €3.9 billion in 2006 and that such a deviation could have a distorting influence on government spending plans and policy.
Mr Purcell also said he was not happy with some Departments who were charging advances made to the Office of Public Works to their (appropriation) accounts in 2006, despite the fact that the work had not been carried out in that year and the money was sitting in OPW accounts.
The Comptroller and Auditor General told the PAC that this effectively overstated that Department's expenditure for that year, while understating what it owed the exchequer in tax.
He said the worst offender was the Department of Education, whose account had to be corrected to the tune of €30m.
