Professor John FitzGerald:

Professor Callan has answered Deputy Collins's questions about public services. Where public services are paid, they are picked up in the expenditure surveys. Information on migrants is included in all the data, but asylum seekers are not, so they should be represented. Senator D'Arcy and Senator O'Donnell asked how to reconcile what seem to be two different stories. It depends on how one defines policy - Professor Callan may wish to respond on this. The way Professor Callan defines policy changes is if social welfare payments are increased in real terms or cut in real terms or if tax rates are moved up or down. That is a fairly standard definition of policy changes. What I am referring to is allocation of expenditure. There was no basic change in policy initially in terms of welfare payments. There were major changes for the under-25s, which will be mentioned by Professor Callan. However, it is the allocation of a further very significant amount of money. Economists refer to automatic stabilisers. When a lot more people are unemployed, if the welfare rates and entitlements are not changed, there will be a very significant increase in expenditure. As Professor Callan said, it depends on the question asked. When one sees these catastrophic and massive changes in allocation and expenditure and €30 billion in cuts, then I think one must look at it both ways. There was a decision to protect. I know that people on welfare do not think they are being protected relative to what might otherwise have been. There would have been suggestions from the troika - although not very strong - that maybe it would be easier to cut welfare payments by more so that taxes would not need to be raised by as much. The decision was taken by successive Governments not to do that. I do not know whether that makes it any clearer; it depends on how one defines what is policy.

Senator O'Donnell asked me how many people earn above and below €100,000. I have that information in my laptop, but I will revert to the Senator because it would take more time than it is worth. It is worth a lot to answer you, Senator.