Professor Niamh Moloney:

I thank the Deputy and all members of the committee for giving of their time. I am very conscious of how busy their schedule is, particularly this evening. I thank Deputy Doherty for his questions. I will reply to them in the order in which he asked them. Regarding the commission's wide remit, it has very extensive terms of reference. I am appreciative to the Deputy for noticing that. When we stand back and think strategically about something as fundamental and significant as the tax and welfare systems and how they interact, we need a big canvas. We need to be able to stand back and see this as a system and how it all interacts together. While in some respects, it is very big and almost even somewhat daunting, in other respects it reminds us of the scale of the canvas it operates on and the number of ways in which it interacts back into society. This is not just tax in terms of a code; it is tax and welfare. It impacts the environment, health, incentives to work and the smallest of SMEs. The very scale of it reminds us of just how fundamental this kind of exercise is. We all welcome it. We welcome the scale of it and the picture it is requiring us to paint in terms of how the tax and welfare systems work together.

We really feel a sense of responsibility. It is a big exercise to set up a commission, resource it and have a secretariat. Governments do not do it very often. We feel this is a very serious opportunity to stand back. It is the fourth time there has been this kind of exercise. We aim to do a serious, strategic, evidenced-based piece of work that lives up to this. My hope and expectation is that we will report by July. To do that, we need to be organised, systematic and serious about what we are doing and that is how we are operating. We have a fantastic commission, comprising 14 members, who bring with them a great deal of experience and expertise and great enthusiasm and energy as well as a terrific secretariat. We meet roughly every two weeks. We will have our 10th meeting on Friday and we will try to keep that momentum up. Our work is focusing us very closely. I agree with the Deputy that we have a big challenge. We have a responsibility to make sure we do this as effectively as possible.

The report will go the Minister and then it will be published. Part of our job as a commission is to think seriously and deeply and come up with practical and useful recommendations, but there is an element in which it is helpful to outline and communicate what tax and welfare do, why the systems are set up the way they are and what shaped them. It is very important there is publication of a report of this nature.

That brings me to the Deputy’s second question on the consultation exercise and the platform we have used. We view this as very important for a number of reasons. The last year and a half has shown us the importance of the way we support each other and what we owe each other, and how the tax and welfare systems work together to make that happen. That has been one of the significant lessons for us during the past year and half. Even during the past ten years, there has been so much change in our society and economy.

This is a real moment. We have a reason, a context and resources, as an independent body, to talk to people. That is very important because this is a key vector through which individuals interact with tax and welfare, hence the platform. With regard to the feedback, the commission members and I strongly believe there must be feedback when people take the time to speak to us and work their way through the consultation questions, whether just one - which is absolutely fine - or all of them. It is iterative. That will be coming through. We will look at the reaction we are getting. It is very important that the consultation reaches as widely as possible. It is our job, as a commission, to feed that into our deliberations, to get a sense of what is coming through and what people are worried about and to determine how that can shape our work. We are planning some kind of stakeholder event for early in the new year, perhaps in January or February. That will be a useful point. We will be further advanced in our deliberations and the public consultation will be closing in January. This will be a useful staging point to take stock. We see it as absolutely fundamental.

On the width of the remit and how things have changed, Deputy Doherty mentioned the housing crisis, prioritisation and how we frame our work. I will offer a few reflections on these matters. It is a good time to stand back and take this strategic long-term view because one thing is absolutely clear, namely, that the constant dynamic challenge faced by tax and welfare systems is enormous and has been over the last ten years. The Deputy rightly mentioned the housing crisis. This is a very significant issue. Going back ten years, we had other crises. We now have the pandemic. That is the nature of the modern economy. It is not static. There is always something shaping circumstances that we need to react to. This is a chance to stand back and take a systemic strategic look at the system to ensure it is best equipped for the future. My academic work is in the area of financial regulation and I often fall into the notion of stress-testing. Who knows what challenges may arise? We know what some of them are but we must think about the system to ensure it is best equipped to deal with them.

With regard to our priorities, we have terms of reference which closely guide what we do. My overall priority is to ensure we produce a report that is coherent, evidence-based and strategic and which responds to what the Government has asked us to consider.