Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am opposed to it on cost grounds. It is the practice now of a Sunday evening after a match for the coach to tell everybody on the team to get physio the following day or before they come to training again. We could not cope with that cost. There would be no cost control on it. A great number of people - as I said, whole teams - could be claiming this. I do not know what the cost would be but it would be quite large. If a person is referred by his or her GP to a physiotherapist and gets a receipt for that treatment, that is a claimable expense and they will get tax relief at standard rate on that, the same as for any other medical expense. We cannot have it open-ended where a whole range of healthy young people after playing a match of a Saturday or a Sunday go to their physiotherapist a few days later to get ready for the next match. That is what would happen. It is the practice now.