Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is good to be back in the Seanad. I am pleased to introduce the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2024 to the Seanad. The legislation, when enacted, will have four main aims. The first aim is to provide an exemption on up to €14,000 of rent a room income. That income will be a disregard for medical cards and GP visit cards in any income assessment. The second aim of the Bill is to clarify regulatory powers concerning the supply and administration of medicinal products and, critically, will provide a basis in primary legislation for community pharmacists to begin prescribing for common conditions. The third aim is to enhance the oversight powers of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, which is the pharmacy regulator, to support pharmacy prescribing. The fourth aim of the Bill is to provide for the establishment of regulations to help to deal with shortages of medicines.This will include a framework for therapeutic substitution by pharmacists in line with a clinically approved protocol. There is also a technical amendment to the Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Act 2023 and I will set that out.

I would first like to focus on the exemption of rent-a-room income from the medical card and GP assessment process. The rent-a-room tax relief allows participants on the scheme to earn up to €14,000 per year, tax free. That is if they rent out a room or rooms in their home for use as accommodation by others. Currently, income eligible for rent-a-room is included in the medical card and GP assessment processes, even though it is tax free. Exempting this income is an important addition to a much wider set of measures the Government has already introduced to respond to housing challenges. We know there are homes which are well located but currently underoccupied. This legislation, we hope, will bring more of these into further use. It will do this by providing more options for people, both those seeking to rent out a room and those looking for rooms to rent. The measure will assist in removing some potential barriers to people benefiting from the rent-a-room scheme.