Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Section 469 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 provides for relief for health expenses defrayed in the provision of health care by an individual on his or her own behalf or on behalf of others. For the purposes of that section, health care includes prevention, diagnosis, alleviation or treatment of an ailment, injury, infirmity, defect or disability.

Health expenses include the cost of

- The services of a practitioner,

- Diagnostic procedures carried out on the advice of a practitioner,

- Maintenance or treatment necessarily incurred in connection with the services of a practitioner or related diagnostic procedures referred to above,

- Drugs or medicines supplied on the prescription of a practitioner, and

- The supply, maintenance or repair of any medical, surgical, dental or nursing appliance used on the advice of a practitioner.

Relief is available in respect of non-routine dental care which is provided by a practitioner registered under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 or the Dentists Act 1985 but routine dental treatment is specifically excluded.

Routine dental treatment is defined as: "the extraction, scaling and filling of teeth and the provision and repairing of artificial teeth or dentures".

Cosmetic surgery or similar procedures also do not constitute health care unless the surgery or procedure is necessary to ameliorate a physical deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury or a disfiguring disease.

I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that in the absence of more information in relation to the particular case referred to by the Deputy I am unable to give a definitive response to the query. 

Further information in relation to relief for health expenses is available from the revenue website at: