This paper simulates the impact that Covid-19 related job losses will have on family incomes and the public finances. It finds that in the central 'medium' unemployment scenario of 600,000 job losses, around 400,000 families will see their disposable income fall by more than 20 per cent in the absence of policy changes, with proportionately larger losses for those in higher income families. Measures announced by the Government - notably the flat-rate Pandemic Unemployment Payment of €350 per week - reduce the numbers exposed to such extreme losses by about a third, but at significant cost to the Exchequer. The paper also finds that the additional cost of the Government's Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme may be minimal, in part because its current design is less generous to lower earners than the Pandemic Unemployment Payment they would receive if laid off.

COVID-19 had, and continues to have, a strong negative effect on incomes in Ireland due to widespread job losses as the measures put in place to slow the spread of the disease resulted in severe economic restrictions. Despite the existence of unemployment supports, additional income supports were introduced to protect incomes. As public health restrictions lift and the economy recovers, we face the withdrawal of such supports. We examine these supports and the role they played in supporting incomes. By profiling those who benefitted most from the new schemes, we highlight the groups most at risk of significant income losses as they wind down. We consider what gaps in the social welfare system necessitated the introduction of such schemes in the first place, along with potential future policy changes to ensure that the social welfare system can provide adequate income protection and financial incentives to work as we emerge from the COVID-19 crisis.

Successive reports have put childcare costs in Ireland at among the highest in the OECD. In this paper, we investigate the usage and cost of childcare in Ireland, profiling those experiencing high childcare costs by income quintile; family type and number and age of children. We show how the National Childcare Scheme is likely to improve the affordability of childcare in Ireland while pointing out features of the scheme that may disincentivise work. Lastly, we simulate a number of reforms to the National Childcare Scheme, showing how affordability and incentives to work are likely to be affected by the alteration of specific parameters of the subsidy.

The cost of childcare has a significant impact on the decision of parents - particularly mothers - to work. Prior to the introduction of subsidies for formal childcare in Ireland in 2019 through the National Childcare Scheme (NCS), the cost of full-time centre-based childcare was among the most expensive in the OECD. Doorley et al. (2021) show that the introduction of the subsidy scheme improved childcare affordability. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the scheme on the labour supply and childcare choices of mothers. We model the joint decision of labour supply and childcare for lone and coupled mothers of children under six. Mothers are likely to respond to the introduction of childcare subsidies in 2019 by switching from informal childcare to formal childcare (11ppt), but not by increasing their participation in the labour market. We estimate that recent (2023) reforms of the NCS, which increase the generosity and the scope of the subsidy, will increase mothers' participation by 3% and full-time work by 4%, but also substantially decrease the demand for informal childcare. A hypothetical abolition of all childcare costs would close the gender employment gap, increasing mothers' participation by 30 ppt.

The Irish government plan to introduce pension auto-enrolment in the coming years. Subject to certain age and earnings thresholds, employees not covered by a supplementary pension will be auto enrolled into a retirement savings scheme. It is anticipated the initial employee contribution rate will be 1.5% rising to 6% after a number of years. While individuals can opt out of the scheme, this can only be done after an initial 6-month period. Those opting out of the scheme can receive a refund of their contributions after this 6-month period, however affordability issues may arise for some during these initial 6 months. In this paper we examine the distributional, poverty and inequality impacts of pension autoenrolment. We find that the largest negative impact will be felt in quintile 4, followed by quintile 3 - i.e. the middle income ranges. The bottom two income quintiles will see the smallest fall in disposable income. These results are driven by the fact that only 1% of family units in the lowest quintile and 7% in the second quintile will actually be affected by auto-enrolment due to lower employment incomes in these quintiles. There is no notable differing impact by gender, if anything women in lower income deciles face smaller losses - either because they do not work, do not earn enough to be auto-enrolled or are more likely to be covered already by an occupational pension due to their higher concentration in the public sector. There will be little impact on the at-risk-of-poverty rate. This is explained by the distributional impact findings whereby the largest negative impacts on disposable income were found for the upper income quintiles, for whom the 1.5% contribution rate examined is not sufficient to push them below the poverty line. These findings also hold for a higher 6% contribution rate.

A series of studies have found that, prior to the introduction of the National Childcare Scheme (NCS), parents in Ireland faced some of the highest childcare costs among OECD countries. To improve childcare affordability, in 2019 the Government introduced the NCS, which awards universal and means-tested childcare subsidies to families using registered childcare. In this report we estimate the potential cost and distributional impact of extending the NCS to a form of mostly unregistered childcare: childminders who care for children in the childminder's home. We estimate that this reform would increase the cost of the NCS to the Exchequer by €35-121 million per annum (8 per cent to 29 per cent of the current cost), depending on take-up of the subsidy. Such a reform would decrease the cost of childminder-based care by €100 per month, per child, and would mainly benefit middle-income households. This could also have wider impacts, on both the demand for centre-based childcare and mothers' labour supply.