On 6 December 2011, the Commission published a communication on the future of VAT (COM(2011)0851), according to which a study carried out on its behalf some years ago concluded that 12 % of ‘theoretical VAT’ in the Member States is not collected due to fraud, errors, negligence and bankruptcy. Did the study provide estimates of the VAT gap by Member State? If so, what was the study’s estimate of the VAT gap in Ireland?