Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will raise the issue of the pandemic recognition payment, which is the tax free once-off payment of €1,000. People working outside the HSE still do not know when they are going to access this payment and their employers cannot tell them. The latest news is that there will have to be a tender for a company to organise how to do this. There is no solution in sight. The morale of those I know working in private nursing homes is at rock bottom regarding this. We are coming out of a crisis, and heading into another crisis, and we have not thanked them for what they did during the Covid pandemic. It is not just private nursing homes. It is those people working in hospices and residential care centres. These are people who never asked for thanks and yet we are withholding this payment.

We need to think about this properly. It is not good enough to say we will tender this out to a company. Solutions are coming from those working in the sectors on how to overcome this. As an example of how it affects them, they are already dealing with having to attract staff when they do not offer the same terms and conditions as the HSE. When they leave to go to a HSE service, the HSE facility can secure the payment on their behalf just by getting in touch with the nursing home to ask its staff to fill out a form. There is a need to meet with the sector to come up with a better solution.

As we are coming up to the budget, I will mention the tax relief for people working from home who do not get the allowance from their employer. They get tax relief of 30% on their heat, electricity and broadband, but that is not a refund for that 30%. When they work it out, the amount is very small. For 30% of their bill, they can claim tax relief on their taxable income, but that is only 20% or 40%. It is 30% and then it is 30% off the 20% and 40% of their taxable income. Again, we can do better. We are in a cost-of-living crisis. Let us sort out the pandemic recognition payment and let us deliver on tax relief for people working from home.