OVER €11million of tax defaulter settlements were written off by Revenue in 2017 after being deemed non-collectable, the Irish Sun on Sunday can reveal.

Earlier this month the Public Accounts Committee published its fourth periodic report.

According to the report for 2017, the Revenue published 289 names of defaulters with a combined settlement total of €53.13million.

As of half way through this year, over €25million of that total sum remained unpaid, with more than €11million deemed non collectable.

The report reads: “Revenue also stated that, at June 30 2018, €25.78million in respect of 89 cases remains outstanding.

“Of this, €11.64 million (45 per cent) relates to debt that is not collectable (€8.54million in cases of proven inability to pay and €3.1million other debt that is not collectable e.g. liquidation).

"The balance of €14.14million is being pursued.”

As it stands, Revenue publish a quarterly list of name of people who have defaulted along with a settlement figure.

The committee chair and Fianna Fail TD, Sean Fleming, said Revenue should be publishing follow-up figures highlighting the names of tax defaulters who fail to repay their settlement sum.

Fleming said: “Most people think once you publish a tax defaulter’s name and publish a settlement figure the money has been paid.

"But a lot of that money is never paid. It is an issue that needs to be highlighted.

“I’ve called for Revenue to begin to publish follow-up information at a later date in relation to previously published tax defaulters who still haven’t paid.”

He also called on the Department of Public Expenditure to create a system to ensure public bodies are not blindly competing with one another for property.

This comes after it came to light Cork Institute of Technology paid €300,000 over the asking price for a city centre property due to a competing bid from the University College Cork.

Fleming added: “They were competing against each other which pushed the price up. It is basically the taxpayer bidding against the taxpayer.

“The Department of Public Expenditure should draw up something so there is communication between public bodies making capital investment.

"I can understand how it happened, but you would not want to see this happening again.”