Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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168. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he has considered introducing a basic income along the lines of pilot schemes in the Netherlands, Italy and Finland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26195/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The government does not 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.

In ongoing review of the system we will also take account of the recent modelling research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that warns that a universal basic income scheme would require large tax increases, provide less effective supports for the poor and result in a large number of people gaining and losing from its introduction.