Ms Anne Vaughan:

I am not sure I have too much more to add to what Professor Moloney has said. The commission was considering things in the more medium to long term and in a steady-state way, to some extent. There will always be different shocks. Covid was the main one we saw but we saw others in earlier years. There will always have to be responses in the short term to shocks. However, we were standing back and we saw benchmarking as important. Benchmarking has two aspects, one of which concerns adequacy, that is, adequacy for whom, for what and for how long. It is a very complex question with no right answer but you have to note what stakeholders and the research state. Even in respect of research, I am sure Dr. Roantree and I would differ in our approach and on the data we would use. We reference that the adequacy aspect was originally addressed in 1986, when the Commission on Social Welfare had a stab at it. If you set something as a target, a Government can move towards it if it wishes, but if you reach that target you have to determine how to stay there and index it.

On the Deputy's point on inflation, indexing can entail some version that entails prices, earnings, double locks, triple locks and going backwards and forwards to determine whether, over time, one's payment is keeping pace with something. The something – colleagues of Dr. Roantree would have designed this in the ESRI – might relate to poverty targets, relative poverty and the consistent poverty rate, which is regarded as 60% of the median income. I am referring to people who are excluded from particular average ways of life. Again, there is much data to come at this. It is not a science in that everybody does not arrive at the same answer, but everyone arrives at an area of agreement, and that is what the benchmarking would be about. Over time, benchmarking will pick up the shocks. That is where we were. As Dr. Moloney said a few times, we were able to stand back to a certain extent. A Government does not have that capacity; it is in the process and has to do something. Payments have to be adequate, however, and have to be adequate relative to the rest of us.