Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein)
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106. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the reason his Department uses a different model of SWITCH compared to that of the ESRI; the reason for the choice to use a simplified model; if he will provide a breakdown of the specific differences between the SWITCH models used by the Department and the ESRI; to provide a breakdown of variables available in the ESRI SWITCH model that are not available to the Department, in tabular form; if he is aware of the impact this has or the limitations it could impose on Department poverty and child poverty targets; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62183/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The microsimulation model, Simulating Welfare, Income Tax, Childcare and Health policies (SWITCH) is produced and managed by the Economic, Social and Research Institute (ESRI), based on data drawn from the Central Statistic Office's Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC).

While the ESRI provides user access to SWITCH to a number of Government Departments, including the Department of Social Protection, it is the ESRI who develop, update and make any changes to SWITCH, and who have access to the detailed underlying SILC data.

The SWITCH version used by my Department is that provided by the ESRI.

As the developer of SWITCH, the ESRI is best placed to answer questions regarding variables and any potential differences in the ESRI SWITCH model and that provided to Government Departments.

My Department uses the SWITCH model provided by the ESRI primarily to undertake distributional impact assessments, which provide an analysis of the change in disposable income for different household types and income quintiles following any potential changes in social welfare measures.

This analysis enables my Department to make evidence informed decisions on potential social welfare Budget measures and to see the indicative impact of confirmed Budget measures.