Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 April 2023

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Chris Macey:

The €12 million being spent per year on helping people to quit should be quadrupled to €50 million and we should take a much more serious approach to it. The evidence is really clear that when people get help it increases the chances that they are going to quit. However, the first thing that gets cut when there is any pressure on the HSE is the quit services. This has happened constantly over the years. Those services are very patchy around the country. In some places they would be good and in other places they will not be. Regardless of where a person lives, if it is going to help then he or she should have it, and particularly when they are paying that amount of money in additional tax on top of all the other taxes they pay to the State.

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