Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies. A substantial amount of analysis covering some of the groups the Deputies have listed has already been published. The Department of Social Protection has, on 4 November last, published a social impact assessment of the welfare and income tax measures in budget 2016. The social impact assessment was completed in consultation with the Department of Finance in respect of the income tax elements of the budget and is consistent with my Department’s analysis of the impact of the budget package.

Using the ESRI’s tax-welfare simulation model, SWITCH, the social impact assessment includes a breakdown between the impact of tax and welfare measures respectively, as well as presenting the overall distributional impact of budget 2016 by income group and family type. It also examines the impact of the budget on the at-risk-of-poverty rate and on work incentives, as well as the impact of the change in the minimum wage.

Expansion of the SWITCH model has also enabled the incorporation this year of investment in the early childhood care and education scheme into the social impact assessment. The distributional impact by family type in the SWITCH model facilitates comparisons between the distributional impact of the budget on families with and without children, by employment or retirement status, and for lone parents. All of those are presented in the social impact assessment.

At this time, it is not possible to use the SWITCH model to assess the impact of the budget on groups of people based on their disability status. As I have pointed out previously, there are already significant efforts under way to expand the capacity of the model. This is evidenced by the work which has allowed modelling of medical cards and the early childhood care and education scheme.

For further information, the budget book includes a range of material addressing distributional issues and explaining the impact of budget 2016. A series of tables show the impact of budgetary measures at a range of income levels for different income earners. A variety of illustrative cases provide examples of the change in net income for sample household types. The extent to which income is redistributed through the tax and welfare system and the progressivity of the income tax system are also addressed in the budget documentation. On the basis that the analysis proposed in the amendment is already published, I do not propose to accept the amendment.