Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Thank you Chairman. Vote 7, Office of the Minister for Finance, provides for the salaries and expenses of running the Department including the Office of the Paymaster General. It also provides for the payment of certain grants. In 2016 my Department will be required to provide for a new service, the payment of a fuel grant for disabled drivers. This new fuel grant is being introduced to replace the excise repayment on the fuel element of the disabled drivers and disabled passengers tax concession scheme. As members are aware, the excise repayment was discontinued on 31 December 2014 following a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The new fuel grant is available in respect of fuel used from 1 January 2015 and the grant will be paid from the 1 January 2016 in respect of fuel used in the previous 12 months in the same way as the excise relief was paid in arrears.

Since payments under this grant scheme will be required to commence in early 2016, a technical early Supplementary Estimate of €1,000 is required under Vote 7, essentially to establish the new subhead under which these grants will be paid. The fuel grant will cost €10 million in 2016, and in a full year it is expected that some 13,700 claims will be made by drivers, passengers and organisations. The fuel grant will be paid on the same basis as the excise repayment on fuel which will ensure that no beneficiary of the scheme loses out as a result of the EU court's decision. Provision for this scheme was included in the Finance Bill 2015 and secondary legislation will come into force immediately after the Finance Bill is enacted.