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...

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...

How great an effect does the structure of income taxes have on women's labour market participation? This issue is investigated using a discrete choice static labour supply model for married couples in Ireland. The model incorporates fixed costs of working and simultaneously explains...

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...

This paper assesses the magnitude and nature of the gender pay gap in Ireland using the National Employment Survey 2003, an employeremployee matched dataset. The results suggest that while a wage bargaining system centred around social partnership was of benefit to females irrespective of their...

An important aspect of the impact of the economic crisis is how pay in the public sector responds in the face not only of the evolution of pay in the private sector, but also extreme pressure on public spending (of which pay is a very large proportion) as fiscal deficits soar. What are the...

We study the effects of carbon tax and revenue recycling across the income distribution in the Republic of Ireland. In absolute terms, a carbon tax of €20/tCO2 would cost the poorest households less than €3/week and the richest households more than €4/week. A carbon tax is regressive,...

Non-cash benefits can have substantial effects on the distribution of economic welfare. Standard approaches to the inclusion of non-cash benefits in broader measures of resources have failed to take adequate account of the pattern of needs associated with the greater use of health and education...