An income test without a number
The Scheme adds a self-sufficiency test to the ordinary route but leaves the income figure, and the list of payments that would count against an applicant, to later regulations. Nobody can yet work out whether they would pass.
What the proposed test covers
Head 5 requires a prescribed minimum income, restrictions on prescribed welfare and housing supports, and no Revenue or social-welfare debt or outstanding court fine. Income and support conditions continue during processing. A two-year support lookback applies, with a discretionary exception for receipt totalling no more than six months. Head 7 leaves the income amount and payment lists to regulations. [1]
A national average is not a household budget
| Measure | Annual earnings |
|---|---|
| Mean, all | €56,356 |
| Median, all | €44,816 |
| Median, women | €40,424 |
| Median, men | €48,897 |
The mean was 25.7% above the median. A threshold set at the mean would sit above the earnings of at least half the employments in this dataset. The Scheme does not specify a mean-based threshold; the comparison shows why the choice of measure matters. [2] [1]
Ordinary life events
- Maternity or parental leave can reduce earnings while employment continues.
- Illness or disability can make income support necessary.
- Unpaid carers contribute time that does not appear in a payslip.
- Redundancy can interrupt earnings after years of work and contributions.
Census 2022 counted 299,128 unpaid carers; 61% were women. This is a substantial form of contribution that an individual salary test does not measure. [3]
Who counts as a “burden”
Head 5 would require an applicant to have “sufficient resources for himself or herself not to become an unreasonable burden on the State”. [1] The people most likely to fall below an income line at a given moment are not idle. They are carers looking after a relative, people with a disability, and mothers on maternity leave or working part-time while their children are small. Women are 61% of unpaid carers, and women’s median earnings are about €8,500 a year below men’s. [3] [2] A test written in these terms would fall hardest on them, so in practice it discriminates against carers, disabled people and mothers.
The premise is also weak. The latest review of the evidence, published by the ESRI in June 2026, reports that in 2015–2019 non-EU migrants in Ireland paid in a net €1,047 a year per person in taxes and social insurance after benefits, more than people born in Ireland (€940). Ireland was one of only eight EU countries where non-EU migrants contributed more than natives. [4]
The wording itself is the problem. It asks whether a person, after years of living, working and paying tax here, is a cost to the State. Caring for a family member, having a disability or having a child are ordinary parts of life. Treating them as grounds to suspect someone of being a “burden” judges people by their bank balance rather than by their place in Irish society, and that is inhumane.
Nothing in the Scheme protects these situations. The list of disqualifying payments could include maternity, illness, disability or carer’s payments, and whether it will is unknown. The two-year lookback would reach back to a time before applicants could have known the rules. Because the income condition continues until a decision, losing a job while waiting could end an application. [1]