I did read somewhere in the last year or so that Revenue are now ranking tax agents, based on their client list make up. And if you are a client of a negative ranking tax agent (poor ranking gained from other clients in their client list), you could end up with a higher risk of an Audit than if you were with a positive ranking tax agent. Maybe someone here knows something a bit more about it?
Thats definitely not the case, although one could argue there would be some logic to ranking agents, or incorporating the (perceived) risk of the agent into the evaluation of the risk of an individual taxpayer... Anyone who works in the profession will know that, just as with life in general, some agents will chance their arm and continue to do so come what may, and others will be straight as an arrow.
In fact AFAIK the ITI have quite vigorously argued against Revenue adopting any such approach. I don't actually know why but I'd imagine the reasons being that any means of ranking agents would arguably be subjective and therefore prone to bias, and could therefore facilitate Revenue in targeting specific agents and effectively force them out of business by auditing them to death etc... again this is an argument that has validity too, and up to now at least, has won out.
The problem is that there isn't really proper regulation; anyone can get themselves a TAIN and just start acting as an agent, regardless of qualifications or lack thereof, or criminal record. I know at least one accountant with plenty of clients, who has been to prison for forgery and/or fraud (up around your neck of the woods actually Paddy..?!) But the point is, given that it is common knowledge that this man defrauded money from his own clients in the past, why would anyone avail of his services? Because he tells them he knows every trick in the book to keep their tax bill down, and that's all they care about - birds of a feather flock together... they'll happily risk being fleeced by him in order to get one over on the tax man!
A good starting point in attaching a measure of risk to an agent, from Revenue's point of view, would be to establish what, if any, regulatory body they are a member of (ACA, ACCA, CPA, AITI etc...), and if they aren't subject to professional regulation then they pose a greater risk - that is just common sense and one would imagine should have the support of the Institutes, as it biases in their favour!