Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Naughten for raising these issues related vacancy and the other measures we brought forward to enable us to release further housing stock and accommodation capacity. I especially thank the Deputy for his engagement on that because he was very helpful and constructive as regards the establishment of the vacancy grant, which we have done. I am pleased to say that over 5,300 applications have been received and there have been nearly 2,500 approvals, so the scheme is working very well. I have received approval to extend that further into next year and to double the targets we have set.

Work has also been done on the rent-a-room scheme and the income disregard, with a particular focus on students. This will be very worthwhile and will have benefits for both students and householders, as the Deputy correctly said. The over-70s income limit for medical cards was changed in 2021, as the Deputy knows. Further to our engagement in March, when we agreed a countermotion providing that the Government would extend the rent-a-room scheme disregard for social welfare recipients and extend the disregard into medical card criteria, we got Government approval for those measures. The objective of the Government is to provide for a disregard of up to €14,000 income for persons granted a rent-a-room relief by the Revenue Commissioners and that such income will not be assessed for medical card assessment purposes. At present, income derived from the rent-a-room scheme would be assessed under the medical card assessment, but in such cases this income would obviously be a contributing factor.

Officials from the Department of Health subsequently progressed work to identify and develop the legislative requirements needed to give effect to this objective. We agreed that this needs to be done and the income disregard for rent-a-room relief for people on medical cards needs to come into effect. The Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2023 has been drafted. It provides for the exemption of rent-a-room income from medical card assessment. The general scheme of the Bill was approved by the Government and published on 6 October, following which work was undertaken by officials in the Department of Health and the Attorney General's office. Drafting of the Bill is at its final stages and I am informed by the Department of Health it is expected to be completed very shortly. Subject to Government approval for the publication of the Bill, which I am sure we will get, it is intended to progress the legislation through the Houses of the Oireachtas in early 2024.

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. These measures will help people who would lose their medical card by renting a room through the scheme. That is a big consideration and people will not do it, frankly. We have agreed the matter in principle. We now need to get the legislation completed and into the House.

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