Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the clarification given yesterday evening that the €1,000 tax-free bonus for health workers will be extended to home helps. We very much value the role home helps play in keeping people safe in their own environment, especially keeping them safe from Covid so that they did not have to go into nursing homes or hospitals. That is very welcome. I appreciate there are calls from many other groups and organisations that cannot be met.I would like to suggest something, however. Many different organisations actually did very well during the pandemic in terms of their business. That is welcome. It is good that there was a silver lining for some people. If there is a situation where they want to reward those who worked really hard for them then there should be a facility where they could give a tax-free bonus. The Minister for Finance should be able to bring in an incentive for employers.

We can look outside to different types of retail industries even in terms of pharmacies and GPs, who worked really hard. Great gratitude goes to them, particularly in terms of the vaccination levels before Christmas. However, they were well-paid for that and the staff put in huge work. There should be something for GPs and pharmacies and, indeed, other organisations that are privately owned to be able to give that tax relief. I really would appreciate if the Leader would take that up.