Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I am happy to genuinely engage on this and engage with my colleague, the Minister for Health. The Deputies would expect me to say this as a finance Minister, but my sense of this is that it is probably something in the direct expenditure and mapping out space and probably a broader whole-of-government discussion, which I am, of course, a part of, as to how we support people in these situations and whether the tax system is the best way to do it. I take the point. There is a gap no matter how we take this forward.

I say the following just to be helpful because the point Deputy Doherty made about people having to wait to get the credits is a real fear people have. I am advised that taxpayers in receipt of PAYE income now have the option to claim tax reliefs in respect of their health expenses during the year via Revenue's real-time credit facility, which can be accessed through a taxpayer's MyAccount. If the taxpayer is putting in a real-time claim, he or she is required to provide receipts at the time of the claim via the receipts tracker. I say that just to be helpful to people who, as the Deputy says, may need to recoup that benefit more quickly.

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