Dr. Nat O'Connor:

With regard to the cliff edges, the obvious thing to do here is to bring in some part-payment or a tapering of welfare payments. In the past, it was said that we have to keep the welfare system simple because it was initially paper-based but now we have the IT systems that allow a good deal of individualisation of people's welfare payments. We are going to see that in the deferred pension, and in the future with earnings-related top-ups, perhaps to jobseekers or on the pension. It should be possible to simply work out mathematically the extent to which someone if worse off because they are or €1 or €2 over the income threshold, and make a partial payment to them that makes sure they are never worse off by missing that threshold. Cliff edges could be smoothed out, and I understand that we have the IT systems, or we are developing them, to make that possible.

On bereavements, the Department of Social Protection is simplifying this by making an online system where you can register a death and it will indicate to all Departments. Our concern with that is that many older people are not using the Internet and so they are further at a disadvantage because they simply are not able to do that. It means that the paper-based system also needs to be simplified to make sure that process improves.

On the growth versus net income, there are a lot of different rules and eligibilities regarding what type of income is included or not included in different welfare payments. That is something that is often not looked at - that certain types of income can be exempt, or certain types of savings can be exempt, such as when you sell your family home to downsize, and the extra savings you might have are exempt in some means tests but not in others. When it is not exempt, people can find that quite punitive. There are always exceptions. I have one example of a woman who put money aside because her adult son has a disability and she wanted to have money aside to provide for his care later in life. There is no exemption for that in the means test, so it is counted as if she could liquidate that money and have it as an income. There are a lot of examples of that, where people want to save for their own expenses. They are afraid of future medical expenses and they might need to do all sorts of things to their homes for adaptability. Yet, the realistic range of costs they might face, in terms of capital costs, is not really reflected in the means test threshold and allowances.