Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his questions. Far from the Government looking to punish any parts of society or any citizens, the approach of the Government has been to sustain society while we have all been grappling with an economic crisis that has its origins in health and public health. That is why the Government has had the PUP in place for so long. We have sustained a higher level of income replacement for citizens because we recognise the need to support them at a time of significant challenge and that is what we have done.

What happened last year is the Government looked to begin to change and reduce those payments at the right time, as work became available and the economy began to reopen. The Government has not yet made any decisions regarding what the nature of the PUP will be later in the year. However, we will have to make decisions relating to that payment at the right time and look at how we can change it as the economy reopens. We can sustain emergency levels of expenditure and very high levels of support when we need to and many people do not have the option to work. However, as the economy begins to, and does, reopen, we will have to begin the work of moving some of the supports that are in place into line with the rest of the social welfare system. It may be the case that we will be able to sustain some of those payments for longer than we would otherwise be able to do. This what the Government began the work of doing in the second half of last year but we were not able to complete those changes because, obviously, we were then confronted with further developments within the disease and we reverted to a tiered level of payment on the PUP, with the highest level of payment being €350. The Government has not yet made any decisions with regard to the PUP but, as the economy begins to reopen and we move out of a health emergency, the very high current levels of spend will have to be considered and we will have to decide what their future will be.

As regards the arrangements put forward by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, this is not about the changes in expenditure that are associated with a decade ago. The SPU indicates clearly that, as the economy returns to a degree of normality, the return of growth will do much of the heavy lifting that is required to close the gap between taxation and expenditure. What the Minister is recognising, and on which I agree with him, is that when we get to a point at which the health emergency is behind us, many of the very high levels of spending we have in place in particular Departments will need to be reviewed and adjusted. As the Deputy will be aware, our current working assumption is that the emergency levels of expenditure will come to an end at the end of next year. That is what the processes put in place by the Minister are seeking to do.