Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of the taxation of pandemic unemployment payments, I would like to add my voice to the points that have been raised by Deputy Doherty. The payments were introduced under section 202 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act, which makes it clear that payments made under that section are to be exempt from taxation yet the Minister is asking us to agree to retrospectively tax those payments. We are not being asked to retrospectively tax a billionaire corporation that has been involved in tax avoidance but to retrospectively tax men and women who lost their jobs in the pandemic and who, in many cases, had their incomes drastically reduced. People were penalised in terms of their weekly income reducing from €600 or €700 to €350 and they are now to be penalised a second time by way of the application of tax on that income retrospectively. That is wrong. I do not believe this committee should give a green light to that proposal.

I would also like to ask a question, which the Minister might be in a position to answer, if not to the dot and comma, at least, in broad brush strokes. Roughly speaking, what sums of money are we talking about here? What is the estimate on the part of the Department of the amount of tax that will be clawed back (a) by taxing the pandemic unemployment payment and (b) by taxing the wage subsidy scheme payments?