Regulatory Investigative Powers & Taxpayers' Rights

The Revenue Commissioners, amongst other regulators, have legislative powers to investigate third parties with the objective of securing evidence of a suspected breach of law. These powers have directly conflicted with the rights of taxpayers in recent times, most notably with regard to legal professional privilege and statutory limits of assessment.

This conflict between regulatory investigative powers and legal professional privilege was highlighted in the recent High Court case, Commission for Communications Regulation v Eircom Limited [ 2024] IEHC 49. During a 'dawn raid' ComReg seized thousands of documents from Eir and proposed to filter out legally privileged information through electronic searches. Eir contested that they themselves should conduct these searches to protect any confidential and legally privileged information. The High Court concluded that ComReg was not required to return the documents and was entitled to conduct their own search into the