Dr. Micheál Collins:

If I may briefly come in on that point, the lesson from the late 1990s into the 2000s, and in fact over recent years as well, is that if you increase welfare payments which are targeted not only at older people but also at those who in various other ways are dependent on welfare, that feeds across to very substantial outcomes in the form of decreases in poverty and in inequality. We have, in historical terms at least, much lower levels of poverty and inequality at the moment. The reason we do is that we have had notable increases in welfare payments over recent years - not every year, and they have stopped, as the Deputy will be well aware. Nonetheless there were increases, including some targeted increases. It comes down to what we want to do as a society and what objectives we want to pursue. That is where the tax expenditure issue fits in as well. In a sense, these are resources and we can allocate them in different ways through the welfare system and the taxation system. It is about having visibility of them and their outcomes. That is important for the Deputy and her colleagues as they make decisions on the allocation of the State's resources.