Budget ‘will only hit gold-plated health policies’

The Department of Finance is strongly backing its minister’s assertion that budget plans to reduce tax relief for health insurance customers will only affect “gold-plated policies” — even though it has been dismissed by the industry.

The department said all numbers and costs used in Michael Noonan’s budget came from the Revenue Commissioners and “these statistics are drawn from the tax relief at source system for health insurance that they operate”.

The department re-stated that “the vast majority of families with standard premiums will not be affected by this change”.