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

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 10, after line 38 to insert the following:

“Exemption in respect of payments under Covid-19 Death in Service Ex-Gratia Scheme for Health Care Workers

4. Chapter 1 of Part 7 of the Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 192L (inserted by section 3):

“Exemption in respect of payments under Covid-19 Death in Service ExGratia Scheme for Health Care Workers

192M.(1) In this section, ‘qualifying payment’ means a payment made by or on behalf of the Minister for Health under the Covid-19 Death in Service Ex-Gratia Scheme for Health Care Workers (that is to say the scheme administered under that title by the Minister for Health in furtherance of a decision of the Government of 8 March 2022).

(2) A qualifying payment made on or after 1 January 2023 shall be exempt from income tax and shall not be reckoned in computing total income for the purposes of the Income Tax Acts or in computing amounts chargeable to universal social charge in accordance with Part 18D.

(3) A qualifying payment made before 1 January 2023 shall be treated as if it was exempt from income tax in the year of assessment in which it was made and shall not be reckoned in computing total income for the purposes of the Income Tax Acts or in computing amounts chargeable to universal social charge in accordance with Part 18D.”.”.

In March 2022, the Government approved the establishment by the Minister for Health of a Covid-19 death-in-service scheme for healthcare workers. Under the scheme, lump sum payments of €100,000 would be provided for health and social care workers whose deaths can be attributed to contracting the Covid-19 pandemic at work. The scheme is intended to recognise the increased risk faced during the pandemic by front-line health and social care workers and, in this spirit, the Government decision mandated that payments made under the scheme would be exempt from tax.

Section 74 of the Finance Bill 2022, as amended during Committee Stage, provided for an exemption from capital acquisitions tax. However, I am advised by Revenue that a further exemption in the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 is also necessary to ensure the payment is fully tax-free as intended. Owing to this, I am now moving this amendment, which provides for the insertion of a new section in the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 to exempt these ex gratiapayments from income tax, USC and PRSI.

Entitlement to payment under the Covid-19 death-in-service scheme for healthcare workers is limited to the families of a small number of healthcare workers. According to the Department of Health, there are currently approximately 25 recipients who may qualify for the scheme. The number of payments ultimately made from the scheme is dependent on the level of future Covid-19 cases in the State, the number of deaths arising from these cases and, of those deaths, how many are related to healthcare workers who were exposed to Covid-19 by virtue of the nature and location of the work which they were contracted to carry out.

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