Since March 2017, a new income-related housing support for those with a long-term housing need called Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) has been available throughout the state. This paper examines the potential impact on financial work incentives of transferring long-run Rent Supplement...

The advent of the Great Recession and the widespread adoption of fiscal austerity policies have heightened concern about inequality and its effects. We examine how the distribution of income in Ireland has evolved over the years 2008 to 2013, using data from the CSO's Survey on Income and Living...

The Programme for Government indicated that under a Universal Health Insurance system, the State would "pay insurance premia for people on low incomes and subsidise premia for people on middle incomes". This paper examines issues in the design of such a subsidy scheme, in the context of overall...

Comprehensive modelling of the impact of taxes and tax policy options requires data on the impact at micro-level of both direct and indirect taxes. There are, however, limits on the amount of data that can be gathered by any one survey. With some exceptions, most notably the Living Costs and...

The Irish healthcare system includes a complex mix of entitlements - some are universal, others age-related, and some are income-related. In this report, we concentrate on the major income-related entitlements in the current system i.e., the Medical Card and the GP Visit Card. Most medical cards...

In the context of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the residential sector, fuel switching from coal and oil to natural gas is considered as a policy option. The paper considers fuel choice decisions among households within 30 metres of the Irish natural gas network. Consistent with earlier...

Empirical studies of inequality and poverty are usually based on disposable cash incomes, disregarding incomes in-kind (non-cash incomes). Since individuals also derive utility from the consumption of goods and services provided in-kind monetary income is not always a good indicator of an...