Mr. Christopher Bowes:

We have certainly been contacted by those who travelled abroad, and were in receipt of the PUP. On their return, they were told that their PUP was not payable to them for the two-week period after their return, during which they were self-isolating, because of the Department's view that one cannot be held to be genuinely seeking work during that period. It is definitely a live concern for Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, and it is a live concern on the basis that it now applies and is in the Act. The absence of regulation creates a massive lack of clarity as to how that criteria will be applied. If someone who has been temporarily laid off since March is looking to apply for the PUP and sees there is a criteria to the effect that they need to be genuinely seeking work in order to access that payment, they may feel they are not entitled to the payment because they are not genuinely seeking work as they have every expectation of returning to their employment when it resumes. That may be the real effect of that measure.