Mr. Niall Cody:

Travel and subsistence are allowable for everybody where wholly and necessarily incurred. There have been various cases in which people have claimed a wider view of travel and subsistence, where it was not the subsistence that was disallowed but the travel. The classic case is travel to and from work, for which people are not entitled to claim expenses. An article in one of the Sunday newspapers a couple of weeks ago argued that Ireland's rules vis-à-viscontractors were very negative and did not support modern employment. I was discussing contradictions in this area with Deputy Paul Murphy earlier and we discussed the idea that if a person worked in an office at home, they should be able to claim travel and subsistence on the basis of travelling to their business location every day, even if it is at home. We also discussed allowing people to claim expenses for accommodation but that would require a widening of the expenses regime. A consultation was carried out by the Department of Finance in 2015 and a number of legislative measures were introduced in the intervening period but it would be a significant opening up of the system if we were to widen it further. There would, I believe, be serious control issues.