Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Most of this is demand-led. A rate is fixed, people will qualify and it is paid out. The physics of this case are not worked output; it is demand-led output. The one thing I find it hard to get detail and statistics on is defective means testing and how many people are getting caught by means testing. Means testing is cruel because it is much more penal than the tax system. Every time we ask a question to try to reform it, it is very hard because we cannot get the detail. Nobody seems to know the figures. I did get one figure. I think 98% of people on disability allowance are getting the full rate. That is useful because if means testing were amended there, the cost would not be significant but it would make a huge difference to a small cohort of people.

I will give two examples. The first involves small farmers who are on disability allowance. It involves a 100% means test if they get a few grants. Not even farm assist allows them the environmental schemes so all income - all grants and savings minus all costs - is taken away where someone with a disability has a hobby farm that they use as an activity. If I got a job, I could earn €165 and there would be no means testing. We need to get statistics, outputs, on these things.

The other obvious example affects parents, particularly homeowners, and children born with a significant disability who will never work, and it concerns what happens when the parents die.

If they have three children and they leave a property of €600,000, which is not extraordinary, particularly here in Dublin city, and it is divided between the three children, the first two get their €200,000 and put it in their pockets without any tax but the third loses disability allowance. We know the policy issues that need rectification but what we cannot find out is how many people are affected and therefore how much it would cost the Minister to rectify these mad anomalies in the system. I could go on all day giving examples. The problem I have is the specific output of all this means testing and, ergo, the cost implications. I think it used to be €80 million if you put up all social welfare rates by one euro but that is kind of mathematical certainty stuff. The biggest poverty trap is means testing, believe you me. That is all I have to say.