Mr. Rónán Hession:

I thank the Chairman. Coming to his first point about people who are aged 66 and over and the PUP, the PUP is a statutory scheme and the Oireachtas has put those age limits on it so we do not have discretion as a Department to offer flexibility on that. On the substance of the point, however, if a person does not qualify for a contributory pension because of their contribution record and then they do not qualify for the non-contributory pension because of the means test, that is the core feature of our system. Someone is either getting a contribution based payment or a means tested payment and if they do not pass the means test it is because of their income. I accept the point the Chairman made that people will have outgoings and demands but in terms of the way social welfare payments are assessed, it is very important that they are either contribution or means test based. As a fallback we have the supplementary welfare allowance, which I know people have spoken of negatively as something they do not believe they should have to resort to, but it is a safety net for people to make sure that where people are under financial pressure and have difficulty they can apply for that but that, too, is subject to a means test.

On the point about the person in the music industry who might be offered €500 for work, the €480 limit is what one can earn and still get the PUP. If somebody has a job that is worth €500 they should be back in employment for that week. Strictly speaking, if we look at the legislation, if one is self-employed and on the PUP one should be available for full-time work. Somebody doing work worth €500 is unlikely to satisfy that so the best thing for that person to do would be to sign off the PUP for that week. The averaging will apply over the duration of the period on the PUP. We are trying to be flexible but at the same time if somebody is consistently earning above the €480 limit they may look at the part-time job incentive, which allows them to work 24 hours and keep a payment of €128.

I am mindful that when we are talking about these thresholds that they exist across social welfare schemes.

For example, the disability allowance is €120, increasing to €140 next year. Jobseeker claims are roughly €20 day. It is consistent with the overall approach taken. For somebody who has a pattern of having work every now and again, the best option for him or her is to sign off when he or she is working and to go on to the PUP when he or she is not working, as opposed to trying to squeeze the €500 under the €480 limit.

I acknowledge the point that is being made. You are raising a wider point, Chairman, about the pressure people who have mortgages will be under as they go through this, and there were comments about the possibility that mortgage interest supplement could play a role there. All I will say is that if we hit a point we will come back with a note. It is not something that has featured in our thinking. To some extent, a significant portion of the pandemic problem has fallen to our Department and our focus has primarily been on the income support, as opposed to the wider suite of housing measures that has been handled more widely across the Government. We hear the point and we will produce whatever information we can to help the committee form its own deliberations and to implement its report. I hope that has answered your questions, Chairman.