Mr. Rónán Hession:

We are just trying to be fair to each other in letting us gather our notes so that we can answer the Senator's questions.

I thank Senator Garvey for her kind words. They are very much appreciated.

The Senator asked whether students would get the Christmas bonus. As Ms Leonard has outlined, the qualifying conditions are not based on whether one is a student or not. It is about whether one has the 17 weeks combined and whether one is on PUP for the relevant weeks. If they meet those conditions they will get it. The fact that they are students is not a complicating factor.

The €480 applies to any self-employed person. It is not limited to the arts sector. It effectively works over a rolling four-week period. We look back over the past four weeks to see if a person has stayed under the €480 limit. The language around the sporadic nature was, if you like, a formulation to describe a rule that ultimately has been replaced by a strict €480 rule. Therefore, if one earned €480 or less over the past four weeks, one is all right.

On the 66-year-olds, we recognise this is an issue that has been of concern to Senators and Deputies. It has been raised throughout this process. The PUP is intended as a working-age scheme and it has those limits. Apologies, as I did not come back to Senator Wall on the 17-year-old issue. The age range that applies for working-age payments is 18 up until pension age. If one is above 66 and receiving the State pension, one can keep all one's employment income. It is just that slightly different rules apply when people go past 66. They get other payments that are there to support them and the two-person rate for a person on the State pension is a good bit above the payment rate of a two-person jobseeker payment. That is not to diminish the concern. We understand that but PUP is a working-age payment and the age range that applies reflects that.

On the seasonal worker issue, when PUP was first introduced that came up as an issue. PUP applies to people who were in work on 13 March or thereabouts and who lost that employment suddenly because of the pandemic. It was not really designed to deal with a situation for people who were not in work at that time but typically had a pattern of seasonal employment. They may have worked during the summer, for example, in the tourist period. There are other jobseeker supports that are available for those people.

I expect that people in that seasonal position, who might have gone back during the summer and now find themselves out of work, would be eligible for PUP. That issue has somewhat timed out.

We formerly had a mortgage interest supplement but it was discontinued in 2014 or thereabouts. It is not a support we provide as a Department. Deputy Ó Cuívraised this earlier. There have been a number of measures and I know that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has been keen to ensure there were statutory protections for people and engagement from financial institutions to try to ensure that the pandemic would not create unnecessary difficulty for people.

On the Senator's question about which Department is the lead on the taxation of the PUP, it is a matter for the Department of Finance in policy terms and the Revenue Commissioners.

I might ask my colleague, Teresa Leonard, whether there is anything I have missed or that she would like to add.