Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for their presentations. I will turn first to Mr. Hughes. He spoke of how business supports are still available until the end of the year. Businesses can apply for those supports until the end of December. What explains the contrast between that and the PUP? It is obviously fair enough that a nightclub owner is not expected to do something else if he or she cannot run a nightclub, but why is that different in the case of, say, a DJ or someone else who works in a nightclub? Why is it expected that they should just go and work in a café or whatever? Why has the PUP been closed to them? Despite, say, nightclubs or taxi drivers and other sectors being affected by the latest actions, and there may be more actions coming, those who were on the PUP previously and came off it are now unable to go back on it. What accounts for the very different approach to the supports for business and those for workers?