The seminar titled 'A Model of Basic Income for Ireland' was presented by John Baker, Emeritus Professor in Equality Studies, UCD and Cllr. Dave Quinn, Social Democrats, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. It took place on Wednesday 17 April 2024 at 15.30 in SIPTU, Liberty Hall, Dublin 1. Attendance online was also facilitated.
Please find the video and presentation from the seminar.
Details of seminar:
John Baker, Emeritus Professor in Equality Studies, UCD and Dave Quinn made their presentation on their research on a model of basic income for Ireland. Subsequently, a discussion was open to the floor where the chairperson, NERI Co-director, Dr. Tom McDonnell presented questions to John and Dave.
Abstract:
This paper presents a model of basic income for Ireland, using the existing tax architecture, that is egalitarian, progressive, economically feasible and politically acceptable. It begins with a brief explanation of the Irish tax and social protection system, followed by a detailed account of our model of basic income for Ireland. We argue that the basic structure of our model is central to achieving our political objective. We go on to demonstrate the validity of our model with reference to our main normative and economic objectives, and to propose how it could be implemented with few institutional changes. We also briefly consider the possibility of a higher level of payment. All of these tasks use data from our reference year, 2019. We finish with some concluding remarks.
Biographies of the presenters:
Working as a software engineer specialising in payroll systems, Dave Quinn was a co-founder of the Payroll Software Developers Association in 2007. This gave rise to a close working relationship with the Revenue Commissioners, including the roll-out of the recent PAYE Modernisation project in 2019. A member of the Social Democrats, he was elected as Councillor on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in the local elections in 2019. He is on the steering committee of Basic Income Ireland.
John Baker is Emeritus Professor in Equality Studies at University College Dublin, where he is associated with the Equality Studies Centre, of which he was a founding member, and the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice. He is the author of Arguing for Equality and co-author of Equality: From Theory to Action and Affective Equality: Love, Care and Injustice. He is on the steering committee of Basic Income Ireland.