Dr. Mary Murphy:

It is moving away but these things move away over generations and the culture gets embedded over generations as well. However, it is not getting at the idea of the right to a payment and individualisation. There are other ways of achieving claim splitting that do not require the person to go and demand it. For first-time claimants, one could introduce a default option whereby the claim is split and where both adults in a household are recognised as potential claimants. That would be the first port of call, rather than the joint payment.

Clearly, a lot of change would be needed even to make that happen. There is not necessarily a cost to the State in terms of the payments because one is just splitting a payment in two, but there are administrative costs. In addition, a lot of cultural issues need to be shifted and changed in local office administrations as to how people perceive those payments.