Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 6, inclusive, together.

Social impact assessments, SIAs, are an analytical framework that is designed to examine the demographic profile of public services users and how they are impacted by budgetary policy decisions. SIAs seek to answer questions about the impact of Government expenditure, such as whether the policy change in question resulted in a quantifiable gain or loss to existing recipients, who gained the most or least and whether the profile of recipients was altered. The assessments are underpinned by a framework paper published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in 2016. The framework complements existing budgetary impact assessment exercises conducted by various Departments and externally by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, as well as the annual spending review programme. SIAs attempt to measure changes in income as a result of a policy or offer qualitative descriptions of how policies affect the financial positions of households. In so doing, they examine the distributional impact of policy changes across a range of indicators, including income, age, household composition and region.

SIAs have been carried out across a number of policy areas, including health, housing, education and childcare. Those areas were chosen for a social impact assessment on the basis that a significant portion of public expenditure is spent on them, they remain a high priority and they have been subject to budgetary changes in recent years. As my Department does not have responsibility for major expenditure programmes in areas like health or housing, it has not completed any SIAs under the framework.

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