Dr. Tom McDonnell:

The benefits would taper away. If people have €20 million or so they would not get benefits, but as income goes down, the benefit eventually reaches 100%. That would be how it would work. It would be technical to design but it is possible. We would have to work out the maths and we would want to make sure the adequacy was there. In some cases, the solution will be universalism. Like with childcare, can we get to a situation in the longer term where childcare is like education or health and is technically free for everyone? Could we do the same with long-term care? How do we attract people into care as a profession to be able to do that? Keeping people in the caring professions means we have to pay them a decent wage and let them see what they will have in 15 or 25 years' time. That is a missing piece because we have moved away societally from where we were in the 20th century. We have a different type of labour market now. We will have an ageing population. That is where we have to get to and now is when we need to be thinking about it, rather than in the 2040s when it becomes even worse than the situation the Cathaoirleach described now.