Tony McLoughlin (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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529. To ask the Minister for Health the reason persons on the invalidity pension have not been allowed to obtain the benefits of working longer hours, such as counterparts on the disability benefit scheme which was announced in December 2018; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54066/18]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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From the 1st December 2018, the medical card earnings disregard for persons in receipt of Disability Allowance was increased from €120 to €427 per week and applies to the assessment process for both single persons and to family assessments. This measure gave effect to one of the key recommendations of the Make Work Pay for Persons with Disabilities Report.

It follows the implementation of another recommendation of the Report to dispense with the requirement that work be of a "rehabilitative nature" for the medical card earnings disregard purposes, that was implemented by the HSE in May 2017.

Invalidity Pension is a weekly payment made by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to people who cannot work because of a long-term illness or disability and meet the appropriate social insurance (PRSI) contributions. It is a social insurance payment and therefore is not subject to a means test or have an income disregard/taper in the same way as Disability Allowance.

However, for persons in receipt of partial capacity benefit, further work will be undertaken in 2019 to examine how this measure might also be applied to this cohort.