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The Taoiseach has defended cuts to Covid-19 unemployment payments, insisting the Government may need to fund pandemic financial support measures through the whole of 2021.<\/p>\nThe Taoiseach has defended cuts to Covid-19 unemployment payments, insisting the Government may need to fund pandemic financial support measures through the whole of 2021.<\/p>\n
Miche\u00e1l Martin was responding to calls in the D\u00e1il to reverse the reduction in the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).<\/p>\n
The \u20ac350-a-week payments have dropped to between \u20ac200 to \u20ac300. More than 150,000 people are still in receipt of the benefit.<\/p>\n
During leaders\u2019 questions, Sinn F\u00e9in president Mary Lou McDonald urged Mr Martin to reinstate the original payments.<\/p>\n
She contrasted it with a Government move to appoint 10 special advisers to junior ministers.<\/p>\n
Ms McDonald said it was extraordinary that last week\u2019s move to cut the PUP came just 24 hours before tighter coronavirus restrictions were announced for Dublin.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said the PUP was originally planned as a 12-week intervention. He said while the rates had now be reduced, the scheme had been extended until next April.<\/p>\n
The Taoiseach also raised the prospect of the Government requiring to fund similar measures through to the end of next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re now looking at a much longer horizon for the Pandemic Unemployment Payments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd one of the decisions we took in July was to extend it out to April of next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis government has already put \u20ac3.5 billion into the Pandemic Unemployment Payment \u2013 that\u2019s what it has cost. This year alone government will spend \u20ac28 billion on social protection \u2013 that is an unprecedented intervention by the state and by government in supporting incomes and, yes, rates have come down in line with the decision in July, but are still very closely approximated to what people would have been earning prior to coming onto the Covid payment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also now have to look beyond April and we have to realize that the impact of Covid, particularly economically and financially, could be right through the entirety of 2021, and therefore the planning, the fiscal planning, the planning around social protection budgets, has to take that into consideration and will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms McDonald also called on Mr Martin to reinstate a full ban on evictions, claiming changes to the emergency coronavirus measure had left tenants more vulnerable.<\/p>\n
She also urged him to act to press banks to extend mortgage holidays for citizens and businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real danger that we face now is this that people become more terrified of losing their job, of losing their home, of not being able to provide for their family than they are of the virus,\u201d said the Sinn Fein leader.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be the worst possible situation we could walk in to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms McDonald said she was \u201castounded and gobsmacked\u201d at news of the special adviser appointments.<\/p>\n
The Taoiseach defended the move and accused Sinn F\u00e9in of hypocrisy, given its use of special advisers in the Northern Ireland executive.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve been a long term advocate for special advisers in politics,\u201d he told Ms McDonald.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve never shown any disdain for that to date and your party hasn\u2019t either, so stop the hypocrisy in relation to that issue.\u201d<\/p>\n