Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have raised this matter because in Northern Ireland and the UK, as was referenced earlier, there is a tax benefit model where it is a tax credit. My understanding is that the take up is much less effective and more difficult, and not just for lone parents. People on very low pay often have two or three jobs. In a tax credit model a person has to keep changing the application to whoever is paying social welfare or to an employer.

In England and the North, it causes enormous distress at different times to different people, partly because the authorities are trying to make changes in real time whereas our system operates on an annual basis.