Professor Dorothy Watson:

I will be quick, because many of the points have been made already. I was keen to highlight a point about public services at the end of my brief talk because it is an important issue. The proportion of services provided publicly in Ireland is lower than elsewhere. This should be taken into account when we consider the significance of cash benefits. Some research we have done shows that the quality of life of people who are economically vulnerable is more strongly affected in Ireland by poor-quality public services than the quality of life of the general population. This is an important question.

I was asked why we are coming up with different answers and apparently contradictory pointers. I suppose the issue is that we are examining different parts of the distribution. My comments focused particularly on social transfers and on poverty at the lower end of the distribution of social transfers. Professor Callan took account of taxation and examined the whole range of income distribution. Others have considered market income as well. All of these work in slightly different directions. Another issue is whether we compare Ireland with other countries now or the changes in Ireland over time. That can give a slightly different picture as well.

I am keen to reiterate that the bottom line in terms of social transfers is that they did a great deal of heavy lifting in the recession. This was because there was a great deal of heavy lifting to be done, because market incomes collapsed. There was a high rate of joblessness and therefore social transfers became decidedly important in keeping people above a very basic income level. That does not mean their standard of living was adequate. We still saw an increase in basic deprivation, and some people lacked basic goods and services, but they were seriously important none the less. Policy might have gone in a different direction. It might have slashed social transfers and the outcome would have been very different.

Reference was made to jobless households. I understand the committee had a major discussion about that last week.