Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I will speak to amendments Nos. 8 and 10 to 12, inclusive.

Two amendments are being proposed, the effect of which would be to remove the de minimis rule so that taxpayers could benefit from a full deduction in respect to their health expenses in the tax year and broaden out significantly the relief on health expenses to include expenses incurred in the provision of assistance to children with a wide range of special educational needs.

With regard to the de minimis amount, the amendment in my name achieves the same effect as that proposed by the Deputy. I presume he will not object to deferring to that amendment.

With the relief for special educational needs, the Deputy's proposal to provide tax relief for expenses incurred with regard to children with special educational needs was discussed in some detail in committee. As with that time, unfortunately I am not in a position to accept the amendments for the reasons I have given.

The Government has in recent years significantly increased support available to the direct expenditure system for children with disabilities. In 2005, approval was given for the Department of Education and Science to move from the individual allocation of resources for children with special needs on foot of a psychological assessment to an approach whereby all schools are allocated resources based on a general allocation model, without the need for individual psychological assessments for the high-incidence categories of needs. These would include dyslexia and mild or borderline mild general learning disability.

My understanding, from information received from the Department of Education and Science, is the new allocation system is working well and has been favourably received by schools. In all, it is projected that some €820 million of the 2007 Estimates allocation for the Department of Education and Science will be related to disability and special needs at primary and secondary schools.

The bulk of this expenditure is related to resource teaching posts and special needs assistance in schools. The current provision to support children with special educational needs in schools includes more than 1,000 teachers in special schools and more than 5,500 teachers at primary level dealing directly with children with special educational needs. This compares with fewer than 1,500 ten years ago.

At second level, more than 2,300 whole-time equivalent teachers are working with pupils with special educational needs compared to just 200 in place in 1998 for such pupils. There are more than 8,200 special needs assistants supporting pupils in primary and post-primary schools. There has been a very significant and needed improvement in the resources allocated with regard to teaching requirements for children with special needs.

As with many areas where State support may be required, the question arises as to whether such support may be more effectively provided through the direct expenditure route rather than the tax system. One advantage of the direct expenditure route is that the support may be better targeted at those in need, irrespective of family income. Support through the tax system can only benefit those whose incomes are high enough to benefit from tax relief.

It may be argued there is no reason, in principle, health expenses relief could not accommodate expenses of the type proposed by the Deputy, having regard to the fact that since 2001, the relief covers the expenses involved in obtaining educational and psychological assessments and speech and language therapy carried out by a speech and language therapist. However, further widening of the relief as proposed would broaden health expense relief considerably beyond its original intended focus. It would duplicate the provision through the current direct expenditure route.

Having regard to the existing support provided through the public expenditure system and the fact that such support is more equitable than support provided through the tax system, as well as the views of the Department of Education and Science that the new system of resource allocation in schools for children with special needs is working well and bedding down, the case for a change in legislation is not one I can accept.

With regard to the other contributions from Deputy Boyle, there has been a significant improvement in the drugs payment scheme, which came in during my time as Minister responsible for health. Before that, people had to wait three months, apply to the health board and wait for the administrative delays involved in that for any expenses over £90. That has now been turned around, with people paying up to a certain amount, after which they receive medicines free. That has been very helpful to working families, who did not then have to dispose of their income for three months before being able to get a refund. The situation has turned around for those who would require medicines beyond the existing threshold.

It would be very unusual to make tax relief available to some taxpayers but not others based on GPs being in a pilot scheme. Two factors go against the tax relief at source for GP fees. First, there would be a multiplicity of GP payees involved and second, the relief would be at a marginal rate, unlike the universal application of standard-rate relief for existing examples of tax relief at source. I made that point in an earlier contribution.

See this speech in context