Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This section provides an exemption from income tax, USC and PRSI for the recognition payment to front-line healthcare workers. We have discussed this matter previously. I believe it was first mooted by the Taoiseach when he was in America last June or July. Commitments were made that it would be enacted before the end of the year or, at one stage, even before the budget. The Minister is now providing for a legislative basis to exempt the payment from income tax, USC and PRSI, but when will the payment be made? I understand that it will now be made in June, but I cannot see why it is taking so long - nearly a year from when it was initially suggested by the Taoiseach - for the Government to make the payment to our front-line workers. There are still no criteria setting out who will get the payment, yet we are enshrining in legislation, and rightly so, its exemption from income tax, PRSI and USC. Has the Minister any pearls of wisdom from his meetings and discussions with the Minister for Health and from collective decisions taken by the Cabinet about who will be paid this recognition payment of €1,000 and when those front-line workers will receive it?