Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was not suggesting that the Deputy was saying that the taxpayer should take on more of the costs that the employer would normally have. I was responding back to the question the Deputy put to me about the balance that we need to think about between the taxpayer and the employer. In the measure that we have here, we are trying to get that balance right.

The Deputy also put a question to me that I neglected to answer in my first response to her regarding whether I think this is a particularly cumbersome way of administering this relief. The truth is that time will tell. Time will tell whether enough taxpayers believe that the benefit they can see by registering for this relief is worth the effort. I hope that even by having this discussion and the prominence it got on budget day, that more taxpayers will be aware of the relief that is available to them. I note that one way of claiming this that perhaps has so far not gotten the publicity that it might merit, is that the ability is now there to make the client claims in real time. All that would involve somebody doing is having a look at their utility and broadband bills, taking a photo of the bill and uploading the photo to the receipts tracker app. This is a well-established way of making claims for, for example, health expenses. It will not come as much of an inconvenience to any taxpayer who wants to claim this relief.