People with disabilities are to be able to earn more money, without losing their benefits.

The new medical card measures will see an increase of over 250% in disregarded earnings.

Health Minister Simon Harris said the process will enable persons in receipt of a Disability Allowance payment to have a greater earnings capacity - and still retain their medical card.

From December 1st this year, medical card earnings disregarded for persons in receipt of the allowance is increasing from €120 to €427 per week.

This will apply to the assessment process for both single persons and to family assessments.

This increase means that the earnings of someone in receipt of Disability Allowance that can be disregarded has increased from €6,240 a year to €22,204.

'Fear of loss of medical card'

Minister Harris said: "This substantial increase in the earnings disregard will address one of the key barriers to employment for persons with a disability - that is the fear or anxiety of the loss of the medical card if an individual takes up employment or returns to work.

"This measure is therefore an important step to ensure that we are continually supporting persons with a disability to take up or remain in employment and be afforded every opportunity to realise their potential".

This is one of the key recommendations of the Make Work Pay for Persons with Disabilities report.

Another recommendation of the report - to dispense with the requirement that work be of a 'rehabilitative nature' - was put in place in May 2017.

Minister of State with special responsibility for disabilities, Finian McGrath, added: "An overriding objective of disability policy is to provide the person with a disability the opportunity to live a full and independent life with their family and as part of their local community.

"Today's announcement supports that objective as access to paid employment is one of the greatest ways of allowing people to achieve this.

"I firmly believe that this objective is very important for each and every citizen of this country, and I will continue to work, as minister, towards removing the barriers to employment for people with disabilities who wish to work."

While CEO of the Disability Federation of Ireland, Senator John Dolan, also welcomed the announcement as "a big step forward."