The government's scrapping a welfare allowance for people who need special diets for medical reasons.

Social Protection minister Joan Burton is ending an allowance to help cover the costs of gluten-free and other special foods.

She says people with coeliac disease no longer have to go shopping in pharmacies in order to get their special foods.

Existing applicants will be allowed to keep the payment, which costs the State €3.5 million a year, but which will not be made available to new applicants.

Minister Burton says most people on social welfare can now afford to buy gluten-free foods in bigger supermarkets, without needing extra money: