Mr. Neil McDonnell:

We briefly summarised much of that. Many of the statistics Senator Garvey referred to will only emerge in time, when the Department of Social Protection and Intreo say what is going on on the ground. At the beginning of my submission, I used the expression of being in "a state of denial" and we appeared to have some words about it. Further on in our submission, we referenced a previous submission given to the committee on the Jobs Kill Zone. We should talk about to the disincentives that exist for workers earning between €18,000 and €30,000 per annum. If we take that back to hourly wages, €30,000 per annum equates to €14.79 an hour, in a standard working week. When earning €17.41 an hour, a person goes on to the marginal rate of tax. Ireland's tax system scoots up very quickly and there are significant inducements for people, especially single parents or parents of two or more children, who are on any form of social protection payments. There are significant disincentives for them to exit unemployment.

We have made four simple recommendations - I will be quick outlining these. First, the PRSI charge should be adjusted to eliminate the very high marginal rate deduction on people earning between €18,300 and €22,000 per annum. Second, the basic rate for qualifying for the medical card should be set at more than 30% above the jobseeker's rate. Third, the child element in the jobseeker's payment, and in all other welfare payments, should be replaced with a significantly increased child benefit payment. The working family benefit should be phased out and that higher child benefit payment should be taxed. Fourth, and final, the income thresholds for access to social housing should be looked at, which in some parts of the country are as low as €25,000 for a single person. Let us not kid ourselves: our welfare system actively discourages people from going to work. It is not that people are lazy, they are economically rational by not going to work. If I were in their position, I would not go to work because I would have a family to feed. It is as simple as that. It is in the members' gift to address those things in the social welfare system.