Ms Camille Loftus:

We did much of this work in advance in the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, which many years ago published a report on a second-tier payment system. We already had done a lot of the running in developing this as a key alternative. The maintenance of an element of universality would have been a key component of it. There is much about what is in the Mangan report that we are in favour of in terms of structural reform with those caveats.

On the point of the payment of child benefit to foreign nationals working here but whose children may not be residing here, that payment is part of our EU commitments. Any Irish citizen working in another EU member state benefits from exactly the same measures.