Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A substantial amount of analysis covering some of the groups to which the Senator refers has been published by the Department of Finance or is due to be published in the coming months by Departments or other stakeholders. A detailed distribution analysis was published by the Department of Finance in sections B1 to B26, inclusive, of this year's budget book. The analysis sets out the distributional impact of certain tax and welfare measures over a range of 13 income levels across six family types. The distributional analysis is complemented by a number of illustrative hypothetical case study families.

The Department of Social Protection will also publish a social impact assessment of budget 2015 using the ESRI SWITCH model. It is expected that this assessment will be published in early 2015. It will be informed by the additional measures adopted by the Government in respect of the introduction of charging for water services. The social impact assessment will examine the effect of the budget across family types, income groups and economic status, and report on poverty indicators.

Current models and data sources available to the Government do not permit an analysis of gender, marital status or disability. However, the Senator may be aware that research published by the ESRI indicates that budgets 2009 to 2013, inclusive, did not have a significant differential impact on people on the basis of gender. This is not to say that women or men were not negatively impacted by these budgets. Rather, it implies that these impacts were not materially different based on gender. This conclusion reflects the fact that the tax and social welfare systems do not discriminate based on gender.

The Senator may also be aware of the recent amendment to a Private Members' motion that was passed in the Dáil on 26 November. The amendment provides for the undertaking of social impact assessments by cross-departmental bodies composed of the Departments of Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and Social Protection before the publication of budgets in future. Given this undertaking, which I hope the House will welcome, as well as the social impact assessments that the Department of Social Protection typically publishes in the months following the budget, the Minister for Finance does not propose to accept this recommendation.