The Revenue Commissioners have made a "detailed and comprehensive" submission to the Moriarty Tribunal, the Revenue chairman, Mr Dermot Quigley, has told the annual conference of ISME, the small business group. Mr Quigley said the submission was made "very recently" and covers all questions relating to the Revenue which are raised in the terms of reference of the tribunal which is investigating payments to Mr Charles Haughey and Mr Michael Lowry.

Mr Quigley refused to comment on the detail of the submission, but said it covered many areas including the operation of offshore accounts. He said many people in the Revenue had worked on the submission and that he was "satisfied" with it. He would not comment on whether new information, not yet in the public domain was included in the submission. He said he was worried that stories concerning the tribunal and evidence that might be presented before it in the media could "undermine the credibility of the revenue with the general public".

He said ultimately he hoped that at the end of the tribunal "the public would agree that the Revenue is and has, being doing its job properly". The Revenue does not expect the investigation into the AIB DIRT affair to be concluded until well into next year, he added, and it continues to co-operate with the Dail committee of public accounts. Mr Quigley rejected once again any suggestion that the Revenue is "soft on tax evasion'. He added that his contacts with the public and business indicated that there is "an acceptance that the Revenue is doing a reasonable job".

"We in fact collected £150 million last year through our audits and investigations and we are committed to maintaining public confidence in the equity of revenue administration by adopting a tough stance in this regard", he said. "The need to protect the Exchequer and also safeguard legitimate business from being put at a competitive disadvantage by the delinquent taxpayer are critical issues for us", he said. Mr Quigley said the Revenue has to give considerable attention to the future challenges facing the tax system, for example the increase in e-commerce.

He said many people are wondering can the Irish tax system cope with new phenomena like e-commerce. He said it can and e-commerce sales will be taxed. "Otherwise we could find that traditional businesses are placed at a competitive disadvantage as a result of being under-cut by untaxed Internet sales", he said. However, he said e-commerce must be taxed, but the tax must be fair and predictable.

He said the advent of e-commerce also offers an opportunity to eliminate and minimise the paper work which businesses are required to complete. He said one way to do this is to develop "online electronic filing of tax returns". He said the Revenue hopes to announce a decision in this area early next year.

Mr Quigley announced to the conference changes in the direct debit scheme for VAT and PAYE PRSI. The new scheme allows the option of making one mandate to cover VAT and PAYE PRSI rather than two separate mandates under the old system