Dr. Se?n Healy:

That is one of the issues it got completely wrong. It quoted a figure of 65%. That comes from an 1994 ESRI study which the ESRI itself reduced dramatically some years later and which was subsequently rejected as too high by the Department of Finance. Why did the commission not point out that the 65% figure in the text - which is the only figure it provides – was disowned by the people who did the work? They did another study and came to a much lower figure. That figure was seen as too high by the Department of Finance, and we agree with the Department’s conclusion on that. That number was carried in the Green Paper on basic income. There have been a number of studies on basic income since. All we ask all the time is for a fair assessment of basic income based on evidence and research, and not on ideology, pub talk or whatever somebody got into their head some day when they had a pain. The analysis in the report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare on basic income is a disgrace.