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WOMEN IMPACTED BY the CervicalCheck scandal will be exempt from income tax and inheritance tax on any monies received in relation to the screening programme.
The announcement was made by Finance Minister Jack Chambers as part of Budget 2025.
He said the move is another element “of the State’s response to the failures of the CervicalCheck screening programme”.
Those affected will not have to pay income tax, capital gains tax, or capital acquisition tax on the payments (or gains from investments arising from those sums of money) made to them.
“Future and historic income or gains arising to these women from the investment of CervicalCheck payments will also be exempt from the relevant taxes,” Chambers said.
CervicalCheck came under the microscope in April 2018, when it was revealed that some women diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer were not told that their previous smear tests had been reviewed.
The 221 women affected – or their families, in the cases of women who had since died – were not informed that the review concluded a different action could have been taken, either for another smear test, a smear at an earlier stage, or a cytology examination.
Payments made under the non-disclosure, ex-gratia scheme have never attracted income tax liabilities.
Speaking to The Journal today, however, Chambers said that there have been examples in the past where people have been taxed in relation to such payments.
He says the exemption principle will be followed for future ex-gratia schemes, such as what will be put in place for Stardust families.
“I personally believe that we shouldn’t be subjecting victims of wrongdoing to our tax system as a matter of principle,” he explained. “That’s what has happened in the past and as Minister for Finance, as long as I’m in office, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.”
Law firm Eversheds Sutherland issued advice on its website last month to highlight an “incorrect assumption” that “all funds arising from damages payments and compensation payments are exempt from Irish tax”.
“No such blanket exemption exists, and each scenario should be looked at on its merits, with the tax treatment generally following the underlying subject matter of the litigation, and how any relevant settlement agreement has been drafted,” the company said.
“In general, any sum obtained by means of compensation or damages for any wrong or injury suffered by an individual shall not be classified as a chargeable gain and therefore will not be subject to capital gains tax in Ireland. However, any income arising from the investment of such compensation or damages payments would be subject to income tax.”
Clarification: A previous version of this article did not make clear that the exemptions related to payments made as a result of CervicalCheck failures.
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A precedence has been set with this. Well meaning as it is. Will not other survivors of state ineffectiveness want something similar.
@AnthonyK: At a risk of sounding controversial, I think this should have been dealt with under some form of compensation or redress rather than some blanket thing.
That it doesn’t preclude future settlements is an odd thing.
However, I’m more onboard with the Gov actually doing something rather than nothing for those people it’s completely failed.
maybe hold tony hoolahan to account? no, no, that would be too much to expect of this snide government.
@Niall English: What specifically should he be held to account for?
Are they going to do this for all individuals who have been failed by the state (and how is that defined)? There’s plenty of people who have suffered, including Stardust victims, people who can’t get or afford homes.
The amount of misinformation out there around what happened with cervical check is mind-blowing. The way some people talk you’d swear that the testing service actually gave people cancer.
@Jason Memail: Quite the opposite, it didn’t tell them that they had cancer so they didn’t receive the treatment they needed, in a nutshell
@Brian D’Arcy: That’s absolutely false, and part of the misinformation that’s common on this subject. 1) These women received tests from cervical check which told them that cancer cells were not present. 2) These women subsequently developed cancer, and a review of their original tests was carried out. 3) The reviews showed that the earlier tests missed what may have been cancerous cells, with these reviews aided by the fact that the reviewers knew what they were looking for, since the patients had developed cancer.
@Jason Memail: 4) The decision was made, and this is the real crux of the issue, not to go back and tell those women that the earlier tests missed the potentially cancerous cells, mainly because what good would it do? They now had cancer and knowing an earlier test missed it wouldn’t change that. 5) Overall, the suggestion that cervical check didn’t tell these people they had cancer is demonstrably false, because the only reason the reviews were carried out on the initial tests is because they had cancer, which they knew about. 6) Going back and checking original tests when something like this happens is standard practice, and the right thing to do in order to improve future testing, but
@Jason Memail: 7) you can argue whether or not it was the right decision not to inform people about what the earlier tests missed, but it would not and could not have changed the fact that they now, sadly, had cancer, and 8) Knowing that an earlier test missed something could not have allowed them to start treatment earlier, because it’s in the oast. 9) If you want to know the specifics of it, I’d suggest checking out care2much on Twitter, who has written some incredibly detailed threads on the subject.
While this is welcome and like one commentor said that it should have been done with compensation.
As a survivor of the industrial state/religious run institutions we never got compensation we were give an “Award” as if we won something, we cannot get enhanced medical cards that the survivors from the mother and baby home were afforded, we cannot get a contributary pension even though we had to work in these institutions, we now get another slap in the face by being excluded from theses tax benefits. I live in a council house and am grateful for that, I live with my ill husband and disabled totally dependant 23 year old son was told that I can purchase the house for a minimum of between 60 and 80 thousand euro, cannot get a mortgage as my husband is 70 as the cut off is 69 and we’ve have no where to go to help buy the house so our disabled son would have a roof over his head if anything happened to us.
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