Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the witnesses attending the committee today.

Dr. Ronan Glynn, on RTÉ on Friday night, talked about us closing chapter one and moving into chapter two, where chapter one was about us suppressing a huge outbreak of a disease that we we were very unfamiliar with, and chapter two is about us learning to live with this virus. The actions that were taken in the first chapter may not be applicable in the second. I fear that as we go forward, we will start to analyse some of the actions which we took in chapter one, or the first phase, but that we will use the standard and space of the second. We should always question authority. Often, in Ireland, the left and right wings are divided around economic theory, but actually they are also divided between the role and authority of the State. I would always regard myself as being somebody at the more liberal end of that spectrum. However, I do worry about us using a high threshold for a period that, no doubt, was incredibly chaotic. There was little information and we were looking for immediate answers and actions. The Social Welfare Bill, is one to which I would point. There are many in this House who would have liked to have seen greater scrutiny of that Bill within the House, never mind those in organisations outside.

Mr. Bowes talks about other countries removing the right to seek work, but a fair comparison is to say that the regime that was put in place in July, probably was one of the most generous regimes, in the sense that it was one of the highest levels of payment. More important, it was for a longer period of time, where other jurisdictions were not guaranteeing that payment for such a long period. By including the obligation to genuinely seek work, we were making a plan in July for something that would happen next March. The Minister has been very clear that there is a common sense approach. I agree that we should see regulations around that, but in making regulations for July, for a payment that will continue all the way until next March, it was appropriate to have that requirement that people would seek work, while at the same time, the common sense that it would not be applied to industries which we were closing in the very short term. Perhaps Mr. Bowes or one of the other witnesses may be willing to respond.