Peter Barry
Question:52 Mr. Barry asked the Minister for Finance the plans, if any, he has to improve the rewards to persons returning to work as compared to their position on social welfare.
Written Answers. - Net Income of Employed.
The Government are committed, within the overall context of limited Exchequer resources, to continuing the policies, which have been pursued in recent years, of improving the net income of the employed, particularly for people on low incomes. The main objective of this policy is to ensure, as far as is practicable, the adequacy of incentives to take up any available employment.
Successive budgets in recent years have taken substantial measures to improve the net income position of persons with large families in lower paid employment. These measures include increasing tax exemption limits, the introduction, and subsequent increasing, of a child addition to those limits, and substantial increases in payments under the Family Income Supplement Scheme. Subject to the overall constraints imposed by limited Exchequer resources and other policy objectives, particularly in the areas of taxation and Social Welfare, every effort will be made to deploy these instruments in a way which ensures that the relationship between net income when employed, as against unemployed, will in general be protected and, where practicable, improved.