Frances Fitzgerald
Ceist:46 Ms Fitzgerald asked the Minister for Finance the way in which he will ensure that this year's budget is poverty proofed. [20275/00]
Written Answers. - Budgetary Provisions.
The income tax provisions in the forthcoming budget will be poverty proofed having regard to the official guidelines on the matter. The poverty proofing exercise will be aided by my Department's analysis of tax changes, by analysis provided by the Revenue Commissioners and by the output of the ESRI's SWITCH model which is a technical aid that can be used to examine the distributional impact of income tax and social welfare changes per income decile. My Department is a licensed user of the SWITCH model.
Responsibility for poverty proofing of expenditure measures rests with spending Departments.