Dr. John Sweeney:

We played around with some of the key parameters and asked what if the threshold were €30,000 and not €25,000. We are able to state it means another 6% of all families would be included and it would cost €125 million more than our baseline example. They are all illustrated in table 3 on page 66, which shows there is a large tranche of families who currently are in receipt of means tested social assistance, that is, 37% of all families, who will be untouched by whatever we do to the parameters. However there is a highly volatile middle group, which can be as small as 13% or as large as an additional 41%, which would receive some element of the second tier. This is the heart of the versatility of the instrument and where political decisions must be taken. The model we adopted as baseline adds a further 24% to the original 37% or, in other words, 37% of families already are being means tested for social assistance and because of the normative way the second tier is presented, one automatically would get another 24% of families, bringing us to 61% of all families in the State who would get some degree of the second tier.

However, it could go up to 78% if the revenue buoyancy was there. Table 3 provides a good sense of what subsequent Governments would be able to moderate.