Dr. Frank Walsh:

Specifically on the abolition of the PRSI rate, we have not undertaken anything specific. What you would have to do to do that is look at the ESRI's microsimulation model, where you could ask it to simulate different tax proposals. I know we have asked the ESRI to do that, and it is very difficult to get it to do that. There is a long queue for that model.

The main issue that has come up over the years is the commission's basic worry that minimum wage workers, as the Senator said, would reach thresholds where there is a big jump in the tax they pay for 20 or 30 hours, and so on. Every year, we put in a recommendation that the PRSI thresholds be moved so that there are none of those kinds of cliff edges. Generally, what we have been recommending over the past year or two is a more comprehensive solution where all of those cliff edges would be removed. That is broadly what we want.