Tax Reliefs
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-10
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Malcolm Byrne (FF), Wicklow-Wexford

If I have a fragility fracture, I can get a tax relief on my healthcare expenses, I can get tax relief on my nursing home expenses, and I can get tax relief if I go to a physiotherapist, an osteopath or a chiropractor, but if I decide to join to join the gym in order to be able to build my resistance, I will not get tax relief. There is a long-term financial saving on the health side.
I have made this case often before. We need to think about the Department of Health not as a Department of sickness and illness. We have to look at ways of ensuring that as we live longer - one of the big successes of this country is the fact that we are now living to an average age of 83 - we can ensure that we live healthily in old age. Part of that is through strength and resistance training, which gym membership offers.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-10