Mr. R?n?n Hession:

What I would say overall to the Deputy is that we are trying the best we can. As almost all EU countries have pay-related systems, we have the benefit of being able to see how it is done elsewhere. The difficulty is that we can never fully transpose another system to Ireland because there are always other benefits and they come within the context of a wider system. As I said, with the strawman, there are a couple of obvious features around the replacement rate, cap, floor and duration. If those are calibrated differently, they will give different results in terms of the cost and what they feed through to in terms of PRSI. It is really a question of what is the right balance and overall blend. Reading through all the submissions and from a long-standing discussion, everyone seems to broadly agree on the need to get the right balance in supporting income without distorting work incentives. I know Deputy Donnelly does not like me using that phrase but I am just using the language of the topic. If we get the right balance, we can support people to sustain themselves for periods of unemployment and get back to work as soon as there is an opportunity to do so.

Then there is a cost element. Where people tend to disagree is on where the level is at. Even in terms of contributions, certain people want increases in employer PRSI while others say it should on the employees. Others ask whether the contribution should be changed at all. There are a variety of views around the individual factors - those different variables. That is all very helpful. The whole point of the strawman is that we want people to give us that feedback. We have had really good engagement. We will talk to the various stakeholders and report to the Government on the views we pick up. The strawman is there to try to help people make up their own mind, as opposed to saying the Government is now introducing this. It is a proposal to react to. We have got very good quality submissions and a variety of views, but also lots of insights and points we had not thought of.