Dr. Barra Roantree:

One of the matters that I was struck by, and which came up in some of the commission's discussions, was how many parts of our system were so outdated that they did not look too dissimilar to a legacy of what we inherited with a few tweaks along the way. Even the names of some payments look similar to what they were called in Britain 20 or 30 years ago. What the Chair said about examining the system and what it is we wanted to achieve drove much of what we did.

In a way, with regard to thinking about the future, the systems are not so terribly different structurally, because of their shared origin. There are many differences, particularly in terms of the rates, generosity and how the two parts on this island look; however, the directions we set out – we do not really go into this in the report – would make it easier in time to bring the systems together. Particularly regarding what we set out concerning a two-tier child payment, the structure of the payments in Ireland today looks very different from that of the payments in Britain and Northern Ireland. What we have set out would bring them a little closer together. I may be getting a little off-piste regarding the commission's recommendations and am drawing a little more on my reading and examination of the systems over time.