Overseas shopping:Revenue officers at Dublin airport carried out a "blitz" on passengers returning from shopping trips to the US but found there was no significant evasion of import duties, according to the C&AG's report.
With the value of drug and cigarette seizures at the airport on the rise last year to €15.34 million from €10.68 million in 2005, Mr Purcell said information on passenger names was not routinely available to Revenue due to data protection issues.
"Such information would provide useful management data to inform risk profiling."
Mr Purcell said the exercise targeting visitors returning from the US was carried out between September and December last year.
Revenue's unit at the airport "estimated, as a result of this and ongoing interventions, that there was no significant revenue-evasion issue".
Interventions in the green customs channel, for passengers arriving from outside the EU, resulted in the identification of only four passengers from transatlantic flights carrying goods worth more than import duty limits.
"One of the cases involved the confiscation of 2,400 cigarettes. In the other three, goods [clothing and a musical instrument] with a total value of €3,484 were detected and duty, VAT and penalties of €2,062 were collected."
There were 178 seizures of drugs last year, valued at €7.23 million, and 1,951 seizures of tobacco, valued at €6.88 million.
Revenue told Mr Purcell that EU states were obliged to direct law enforcement at tackling organised crime when he asked whether the emphasis on drug and tobacco smuggling posed a risk that the abuse of personal goods limits might not be adequately monitored.
"Revenue did mount periodic examinations of flights where the abuse of personal goods limits may arise, and the results of these indicated that there was no major risk involved," the report said.
"It was not a major risk to Revenue or to society compared with the social and fiscal impacts of drug trafficking and organised cigarette smuggling."
After examining whether enhanced passenger data would improve control, the report said: "Timely routine access to the enhanced passenger data in airline systems, including historic data, would certainly enable more targeted and better quality interventions."
