Dr. Laura Bambrick:

ICTU does not dispute that a small number of employers are struggling to find workers as they reopen. What we are calling into question is both the baseless claim that this is caused by the PUP and the way in which the unusual is being presented as representative. If the PUP is not causing these struggles to find new staff, what is? As was mentioned, there is an evidence base of how workers have responded because, unfortunately, this is not our first reopening.

Ours is a rich economy, and if we look at what is happening in other rich economies farther down the road in reopening, there is evidence that they too are struggling to get workers in hospitality, the beauty services and agriculture. Because they are further down the line, they have an evidence base and they are asking what is causing this. In many instances, those countries do not have a PUP-equivalent payment. They have found that these sectors are disproportionately reliant on cheap migrant labour. Many such workers over the past 15 months have returned to their home countries. We do not have the same inflow of migrant labour at the pace we normally would to pick fruit or to work in the hospitality sector because they are not coming and people are fearful that we might go into a new lockdown.

Businesses are also finding that those workers who are resident here in the long term or are native to the country have changed sectors. In many cases, they have moved into retail, which does not have significantly better conditions but can provide regular hours and regular pay. They will, therefore, have changed employers or sectors and, in some instances, left employment. This is typical for a second earner in the household People have woken up and asked why they are killing themselves working for those 15 hours at the cost of their quality of life and family life. They may have decided to cut their spending to suit and gone for time over money.

As the Deputy noted, only 75 employers contacted the Department of Social Protection during May. It is not the most robust measure, given that not all employers will pick up the phone and complain, but when those employers complain to the Department, it will take the information of the 75 people who have refused their jobs, it will have those cases investigated and tell the employers how many of their former employees are no longer in the country and not claiming the PUP, how many have changed employer and how many are under further investigation. The numbers under further investigation would not get even a footnote in the newspaper, never mind the front page. There is a need for follow-up questioning by journalists who are willing to take individual experience and generalise it as if this is widespread.

I would like to address the suggestion that part-time workers do not want to return to work. The majority of exits from the PUP in recent weeks have been from the under-25s, who are disproportionately the lowest-paid workers and are mainly from the hospitality sector. As sectors are reopening, and hospitality has not fully reopened, we are seeing movement. There are some difficulties with rehiring - Ireland is not unusual in that - but this is being misdiagnosed as a problem with the PUP. A recent report published by the IMF, not a natural bedfellow of the trade union movement, showed that during pandemics, when fiscal supports to both business and workers are removed too soon, it has a devastating impact.

As a word of warning, businesses should be careful what they wish for. Otherwise, there will be a negative impact for them because much of the PUP went into their cash registers.