Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is unusual to find a lending institution that has feelings or empathy. Mr. Deering is spot on. There are implications around marriage break-ups and I am aware of suicides within families. These issues are detrimental and it is not all about hard cash. It is about making bricks and mortar a home and an environment in which a family can grow.

When I was listening to the contributions, I thought of the pension implications for people on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, or the temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS, or whatever. Some of those people may not be getting their jobs back but have paid into a pension scheme. What will happen to somebody who is due to retire in the next couple of weeks? I think of an old saying to the effect that one should not worry about what is going to happen tomorrow but should plan about how to deal with it. Have our guests seen anything that would suggest that the pensions of people who have been on those payments for a 12- or 15-month period will be affected in the future? Will redundancy payments be affected? Those workers have obviously not earned the same amount during the period of time they were on the pandemic payment than they otherwise would have. Has anything been said about that? Will a mechanism be put in place? I assume that many people are going to lose their jobs and may be well be told that they are not entitled to X, Y or Z funding because they have not paid into a fund for the past 15 months. I would like to hear our guests' opinions on that.