Mr. R?n?n Hession:

The basic income is a pilot scheme. It is not a social welfare benefit. It is a pilot scheme being run in the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. That is to recognise the precarious and oscillating nature of income in the arts. It is a pilot of 2,000 or 3,000 people that will run for three years and that is the payment rate that was recommended at the time by the task force, on which I sat, to be pitched at the equivalent of the full-time minimum wage with people working a 32-hour week, which is, on average, what people work.

The carer's payment is a social welfare payment, so there is a different basis for it. Social welfare payments are essentially for where a particular contingency arises. If, for example, a person cannot work because he or she is carer, has a disability that restricts his or her ability to work, is unemployed or is a lone parent, the State will step in and provide a basic level of payment. The carer's allowance is currently €224. The base line of social welfare is €208, so it is slightly above the base line rate.

In terms of a universal income or basic income, however, the way that is being looked at is that there is a report that is being or has been done, as I understand it, by the Low Pay Commission based on Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, analysis. That is with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and is being looked at by the Tánaiste's officials. It is not a social welfare issue per se. The carers' groups told us in their pre-budget submissions that they think carer's allowance should be pitched at the level of the basic income pilot, which is €325.

I will explain a point about universal basic income. This is not a feature of the pilot that is being run, but it is in the task force report and it is worth looking at. Basic income is basically an alternative model to our current system. Our current system works on a basis of social welfare payments and tax reliefs. Usually, the concept of a basic income is that a person does not have social welfare payments or tax reliefs. All his or her income is fully taxed and, instead, a person gets a basic income alongside that. There will be winners and losers in that. A basic income, as a concept, is a big departure from our current system. It is something that has been tried internationally in targeted ways. A basic income, as such, is not something we have looked at from a social welfare perspective. We looked at it from the point of view of income support and carer's allowance. It is means tested. We do not have enough money to pay everybody so we target it based on assessment of income.