Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection

Report on Child and Family Income Support: Discussion

1:30 pm

Ms Camille Loftus:

On whether there would be better in-work benefits, over half the OECD countries now use an in-work benefit. A common mechanism that is used is to deliver a refundable tax credit. I will not go into the details, but a refundable tax credit has a number of advantages over a social assistance payment. It could be administered by the Revenue system. It helps with take-up. In the entire history of FIS, the upper estimates of take-up have been approximately 40%.