David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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59. To ask the Minister for Social Protection his plans for a basic income as outlined in the speech of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10497/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The speech referred to was made, not by me, but by my colleague the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Pascal O’Donohue.

In his speech, Minister Donohue did not outline plans for a basic income.

Rather, speaking in the context of possibletotal displacement of labour from large parts of the economy (by advances in robotics), the Minister included the concept of a basic income as one of a number of ideas that might need to be explored as a response to such a development.

Displacement of human work on this scale is not certain to occur at any stage, and there is certainly no indication that it is likely to occur in the near future. To date, as noted in the Minister’s speech, “unemployment levels have ebbed and flowed more as a consequence of the economic cycle than ongoing technological advances.” The deputy will be aware, in this context, that employment in Ireland has been growing strongly, and unemployment falling rapidly, since the recovery from the recession began in 2012.

The government does not, therefore, have any plans to introduce a basic income scheme. The tax and social welfare system is continually reviewed, in the budgetary process and otherwise, in terms of its impact in redistributing income while ensuring the maintenance of incentives for people to contribute to society through employment. We are aware that limited experiments with what might be referred to as “partial” basic income approaches are underway or planned in other countries. We will follow the outcome of these experiments with interest to see if they provide any lessons that might be applied to aspects of the Irish system.