196A State employees: foreign service allowances.

(1)Where any allowance to, or emoluments of, an officer of the State are certified by the Minister for Finance, having consulted with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, or with such Minister of the Government as the Minister for Finance considers appropriate in the circumstances, to represent compensation for the extra cost of having to live outside the State in order to perform his or her duties, that allowance, or those emoluments, shall be disregarded as income for the purposes of the Income Tax Acts.

(2) In this section—

“emoluments” means emoluments to which section 985A applies;

“officer of the State” means—

(a) a civil servant within the meaning of section 1(1) of the Civil Service Regulation Act 1956,

(b) a member of the Garda Síochána, or

(c) a member of the Permanent Defence Force.

(3) This section is deemed to have applied as on and from 1 January 2005.