Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join my constituency colleague, Deputy Shortall, in speaking about the USC obligation on general practitioners involved in the GP Care for All practice. I note as a broader point the changes to the USC and welcome them. I think they will be very welcome for workers. I will return to them in a moment but I want to speak to the point Deputy Shortall raised. Since she said it might be her last time speaking in the House, I also acknowledge her almost 32 years served in Dáil Éireann. I think I am correct in saying she is the longest serving female TD in the House. I do not know whether or not that makes her the mother of Dáil Éireann but I do know that Róisín would not welcome our giving her too much faint praise, so I will not do that.

The benefit of having somebody serving so long in a constituency is that you remember all the promises that have been made by different agencies. The requirement for GPs in our area is incredibly important, particularly in the Finglas west and south area. We have a promise of a primary care centre, and that will have GPs located in it, but it is still a number of years off. We have a solution here for a practice but the tax elements of it are causing difficulty in it being implemented. The proposed solution may be put on the Minister's desk, but the reality is that this sits with the Department of Health and the legislation which limits the ability of the HSE to contract with anybody other than an individual with regard to the GP contract. That can be for a good reason, because we do not necessarily want for-profit conglomerate groups coming in, but we have to look at that legislation, the Department of Health has to look at that legislation, and the Department of Health and the HSE have to look at changing that to allow for not-for-profit operators.

As I said, this is broader than the proposed tax changes, but there is a bizarre situation where we have an employee of a not-for-profit practice in this case who has a shared tax arrangement with their partner, and their partner with them receives the USC liability for that entire practice. I know that contractually that income is assigned to that person. In practice, however, that income does not arrive in that person's bank account; it is retained by the not-for-profit practice. I draw the Minister's attention to this again. He knows we have spoken about this, and I know he and the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, have spoken about it. I welcome news from GP Care for All that there have been some discussions on this and that there is a proposal for a way forward with regard to Summerhill. I suppose there is a caution there on the part of GP Care for All in that if this issue is not resolved for the Summerhill practice, it is unwilling to extend its current sphere of influence into the Finglas area. The thing I care about is providing more GP care services into the Finglas area.

Within whatever remit is left, or whatever possibilities are left between the Department of Health and the Department of Finance, we have to come to a solution on this. The reality is that the HSE providing directly employed GPs within a primary care centre is the solution. I will not drift too much off this, but the USC obligation for somebody working in a not-for-profit practice does not make sense logistically, even though technically the contractor arrangements are there. I ask the Minister to look at that issue.

More broadly, on the changes in the budget, with regard to USC, in many ways the budget is about keeping ahead of or keeping track with inflation while not adding to inflationary impacts. Between the Finance Bill and the Social Welfare Bill, we have done that in terms of USC changes, changes to tax plans, changes to things like the renter's tax credit, even some of the changes around the home carer's tax credits and so on, so some of what this Bill does is keep everybody where they are. That is often what a budget does. A huge chunk of a budget is about keeping people where they are. Equally, however, we have to address inequalities and reforms. Particularly with regard to the home carer's tax credit, to which this section relates, in the next Dáil we have to look at the two areas of people with a disability who are working, or people with a disability who have a social welfare payment, and, equally, carers who are working or who have a partner working or those exclusively on a social welfare payment. We know that within those two areas, disability and caring, there is a broad level of needs. Also, it is a very broad spectrum in terms of income earning. I know from the many carers who come to my clinic, particularly women, which is many of them, whose partner might work, that they find it a huge injustice that their income is adjusted by means tests from social welfare. They regard it as income but, of course, it is a social welfare support. In the next Dáil, we can and should be more ambitious in that area. However, I welcome the changes to the home carer's tax credit in this section.

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