Mr. Paul Ginnell:

I thank the committee for this opportunity to address it. I will quickly go through the presentation I sent to the committee in advance of today's meeting. It might be too long for the time allocated to me.

We welcome this opportunity to present our analysis of budget 2017 and to suggest ways of improving the poverty, gender and equality impact assessment of policy. We have welcomed the creation of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight and the independent parliamentary budget office, which will come into action soon. We believe it is significant and important that the programme for Government contains a commitment to develop the process of budget and policy proofing. The programme for Government also commits to the development of a new integrated framework for social inclusion to tackle inequality and poverty. It is hoped that consultation on this framework will begin shortly.

The European Anti Poverty Network Ireland has produced an outline of its proposals for an integrated anti-poverty strategy. Copies of this document are available in case members have not already received it. I am moving through the presentation quickly. The current situation is not positive. Our presentation includes a chart that shows how poverty has increased in recent years. Inequality has also been increasing since 2009. We believe these key issues need to be addressed. This committee has an important role in ensuring policies are supporting the Government's commitment to reducing poverty and delivering an integrated strategy to address poverty and social exclusion.

Our assessment of budget 2017 is set out in section 2 of our presentation. We welcome the €5 increase in almost all social welfare payments, the partial restoration of the Christmas bonus and the partial reinstatement of the income disregard for lone parents. We also welcome the increased funding for the housing assistance payment and for emergency accommodation for homeless people. Although the increased budget for social housing is extremely important, we suggest it could be increased further in light of the level of demand in this area.

What was also very important in this budget was the introduction of the first stages of a new single affordable child care scheme. Finally, I highlight the increase in funding for higher and further education.

We regret, however, that some areas could have been better addressed and were not. People under 26 years of age continue to be on lower social welfare payments and the budget effectively increases the gap between this group and their older counterparts. There is no increase in support for asylum seekers in direct provision and the minimum wage is only increased by 10 cent per hour, which is very limited . Budgetary measures also do not appear to be part of an overall plan to address poverty, but rather involve spreading resources very thinly. We are also concerned about the cuts to taxation, particularly through the universal social charge, USC. By international comparisons, Ireland already has a low tax base and a large infrastructure deficit. The cuts to USC also benefited those on higher incomes most and could have been better spent on services such as child care, housing and reducing the cost of living for those on the lowest incomes.

I will comment briefly on the distributional impact. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, assessment of budget 2017 is that it is close to distributionally neutral overall but with some minor additional resources targeted towards those on the lowest incomes. I have included the ESRI chart in my submission which shows some of that.

In section 3 of the submission we look at benchmarking social welfare rates, which we believe is important for an integrated social inclusion strategy to address issues such as income, services and access to decent work. We propose that all adult social welfare rates be benchmarked to a level that lifts people above the 60% poverty line, while also being adequate to provide them with a minimum essential standard of living. This could be achieved over a number of budgets. The most recent survey on income and living conditions, SILC, for 2014 shows the 60% poverty line for an individual at €209.39 per week. Following the changes in budget 2017, the social welfare rate for most adults will be €193 per week. This leaves a gap of over €16 per week to be covered in terms of people having an income at the poverty line. The table in the submission shows the gap between the social welfare rates that will be in place in 2017 and the poverty line. It is a particularly big gap for those under 26 years of age.

I will move on to the minimum essential standard of living. This is based on a widely accepted methodology which calculates the income necessary for different family types to live with dignity. The work has been done by the Vincentian Partnership for Social Justice and its minimum essential budgeting standards research centre analysis of budget 2017 shows that of the 207 household types it has calculated with children on social welfare, the number of those families capable of meeting a minimum essential standard of living will marginally increase from 23 to 27 households as a result of changes in the budget. In addition, a single adult over 25 years of age will still have an income inadequacy of almost €60 per week. The gap between what they will have after the impact of budget 2017 and what they require for a minimum essential standard of living will be €60 per week.

Finally, there is the issue of poverty impact assessment. This is an important matter. Poverty proofing and, subsequently, poverty impact assessment have been part of Ireland's anti-poverty strategy since 1997. The definition of poverty proofing adopted in 1999 is:

[T]he process by which Government Departments, local authorities and State agencies assess policies and programmes at design, implementation and review stages in relation to the likely impact that they will have or have had on poverty and on inequalities which are likely to lead to poverty, with a view to poverty reduction.

It is important to highlight that the focus is not just on budgetary or spending policy but on all policy and programmes which could impact on poverty and inequalities. It also looks at the impact on different groups and is not limited to purely statistical analysis but allows for much more flexible approaches to assess the possible impact.

In 2008, new guidelines were adopted for what was then called "poverty impact assessment". These guidelines emphasised the importance of consultation and transparency as key parts of the process. The process involves seven steps. These are outlined in the submission, so I will not detail them now due to the time available. Overall, the assessments, since the period of their introduction, indicate that even from the start, while there might have been a reasonable level of formal compliance and reporting with poverty proofing and poverty impact assessment, it is much more difficult to identify what the actual impact was on policy and programmes, and therefore the impact on poverty. Since 2008, the social inclusion division in the Department of Social Protection has continued to work on poverty impact assessment but with ever-decreasing resources and focus. In effect, throughout this time poverty impact assessment was only carried out in very limited circumstances and with little transparency in the process.

I will outline our recommendations for a poverty and equality impact assessment. It must be comprehensive and include all relevant policy areas. It must be a planning tool and not just a reporting process. It must be transparent and be published in a transparent manner, involving a clear assessment and justification for decisions in poverty terms and how they impacted on policy. The assessment must involve meaningful consultation with those impacted by the policy measures. It must be part of policy debate, including debate in the Oireachtas, and involve assessment using a range of indicators, not just the numbers at risk of poverty, and examine the impact on people's lives. Also with regard to poverty impact assessment and poverty proofing, there must be a commitment to, and ownership of, impact assessment at the top level of Government as a tool for supporting it to deliver on its commitments to reducing poverty and inequality. The Department of the Taoiseach should take a lead role in rolling it out across all Departments.

In conclusion, the effective impact assessment of the budget is essential in addressing poverty and inequality. The committee has a key role in ensuring that this happens in a transparent manner. This should not just involve looking at the specific tax and expenditure changes in any one budget but at overall taxation and expenditure. It is also crucial that the Government seeks to strengthen the implementation of impact assessment across all policy and programme areas as envisaged in poverty impact assessment guidelines.