Dr. Nat O'Connor:

It really does not matter what we do as long as we are targeting. Rather than increasing the universal child benefit for everybody, it makes more sense to take that money and give three times as much to those who have least, whether that is through a top-up child benefit payment, what used to be called the increase for every qualified child in the weekly payments, the working family payment and any other payment we can get our hands on that targets that money. It is not as simple as having this model or that model. It is about looking at the data which tells us, for each of these payments, where the money is going and where the gaps are. It is not beyond our capacity to do that.

The Department of Social Protection now has a much more sophisticated computer system in that it can individualise payments, which it could not do ten or 20 years ago. It can now do that through the jobseeker's payment or through the new pension if people decide to defer it. The Department has the capacity to really tailor payments to focus them towards people and we should harness that capacity.