Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 April 2024

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Report on Indexation of the Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion

Dr. Tom McDonnell:

Let us say we establish for a particular payment, whatever it might be, that we think the benchmark is going to be 32% or 35% of wages or whatever it might be and the starting position is 27%. The first stage is just to get up to that level, and when we have got to that level, at that point, it is effectively indexed to wages. We start at 27% and say that, over a two-year period, we will get it up to 32% of what we think wages will be in two years' time, which means that for those two years it will be growing faster than wages. Then, when it gets there, it is linked to wages. Obviously, in some years the wages will fall and we can adjust. Those are the two stages. The first stage it is faster than wages and the second stage is at wages, assuming, of course, it is currently at a level that is below the adequacy benchmark, which I suspect it will be for all of them.