Dr. Tom Boland:

I might go to the reading list the Deputy mentioned to clarify or expand on the point about individualisation. Our nearest neighbour, the UK, recently undertook a large revamp of its social welfare system under the universal credit system. It is controversial and is beset by difficulties but it is very much designed to make sure the welfare payment follows the individuals. There was some commentary on the ways in which it seemed, from a certain perspective, that welfare systems of disregards and means-testing could serve as a disincentive to household formation or an incentive to lone parenthood and, of course, we need to take all the implications of that with a large pinch of salt because what is happening there is probably much more complex.

What does appear to be the case in the UK, although I do not know whether we have this data as such, is that there is a larger incidence, relative to the size of the population, of dissolution of unions, whether they are marriages or cohabitations, for those who are on welfare than for those who are not. Again, this may be due to multiple factors in various ways, but some of the tensions relating to couplehood arise around money, who gets it and dispenses with it, and who has an entitlement to it, and making people dependent on their spouse is a way of building tension and difficulty into it. There is a larger social good to be pursued in supporting those who are unemployed, even if they have a spouse who is remunerated reasonably well, and in making sure the experience of usually temporary periods of unemployment is not scarring and does not psychologically undermine people's expectations and cause them difficulties in securing work and furthering their careers. It is another area in which we need more research but the comparison is important to note.