Mr. Shane Conneely:

Our position on it would be that the jury is out on UBI. It is potentially very expensive but it could potentially work. There are a number of experiments that are ongoing internationally in this area, so we would hold our fire. I am not sure we would be the best country to jump forward and lead on this one. There are potential benefits. The thing to bear in mind is that about 10% of the budget of the Department of Social Protection goes to administrative costs. It is a couple of billion euro a year but it not an enormous saving at a State level in terms of how much we could gain back from that. It would also have to be accompanied with some serious changes to our income tax code. Pretty much all income that was not UBI-derived would probably have to be taxed, if it was to be credible. One of the great benefits that could arise from something like that would be greater flexibility within the workforce. It is not so much that there will be lower costs for giving people grants, etc. It is that people who may only be able to work four or five hours a week would be able to work for those four or five hours. That is what could be done. However, we have enough other problems to solve. The Finns might come back with some good answers for us.