Ireland has an expensive safety net in place for its citizens. Our pension and unemployment benefits are high in comparison with most of our European neighbours. For example, in Spain, all unemployment benefits stop after six months drawing the equivalent of the dole.

We also spend heavily on health. Out of total annual Government spending of almost €50bn, €20bn goes to the Department of Social Protection and €13bn to the Deparment of Health.

At the same time, our tax rates are high, especially for those on quite modest middle incomes who pay tax at a rate of 55% on every extra euro. The low rate that this tax rate starts at is seen by the Government as needing action but we cannot have it both ways.

While we accept that there is little appetite for a dramatic change in the way the health and social welfare system operates, it does not mean there shouldn’t be a system that facilitates compliance. The Department of Social Welfare gets about 2,000 calls a month from members of the public complaining about fraudulent claims by people they know.

Similarly, it seems extraordinary that a total of two million people have a full medical or restricted GP visit card. The income level to be eligible for full medical card is €266 per week, plus allowances for dependent children, travel expenses to work, etc. I find it incredible that in a country with an average industrial wage well over €35,000 and a minimum wage of over €360 that so many are eligible.

Every time it is mentioned that maybe we should have a universal national identity card that tracks and cross-references, by computer, all our dealings with the State, there is an outcry from those concerned with civil liberties. Yet as a farmer, I am resigned to a Single Farm Payment system that is tied into a code of good farming practice that can significantly penalise me for quite minor transgressions, as well as checking when I am due to have a TB test done on my cattle. Each of the approximately eight million cattle in Ireland is fully traced by the Department of Agriculture and each movement is monitored. Yet we cannot keep track of four million people, most of whom live in the same place year after year.

As taxpayers, we may resent a social welfare system that is so generous, but if the democratic system has voted for it, then we must accept that. But that is different from people claiming benefits to which they are not entitled through the use of multiple identities or black economy work. A universally used national identity card, with an up-to-date photograph, would be a useful start in streamlining the system.