Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Not every employer is a company. Many employers are sole traders. Many of those sole traders have already fallen. Most small café shops are not companies; they are sole traders. Their employees are gone and so are they. They have closed their doors.

If one looks at what we propose for companies, for a banking sector such as the credit unions the regulation states that they must put so much away for a crisis. Companies must do the same because they must start back up when Ireland gets back online. We must look at it from the point of view that the employer must be protected as well as the employee. To start their business back up, raw materials coming into companies are in short supply. Companies trading currently are running out of materials to keep going to create jobs and keep people in work under the proper guidelines and yet they show that their productivity goes down by 25%. They are not covered under this Bill. Within the guidelines in place, we must allow for companies to restart and have the cash supports to do that. We cannot punish them through Revenue and Revenue needs to make it clear to employers and employees that they are protected. Earlier today we raised the point that people in part-time work currently, if they take the payment of €350 and they are only on €200 a week, must know the position.

Regarding people on part-time work at the moment earning €200, €300 or €400 per week who take the payment of €350, the form does not ask people what they are earning. The form states that a person should fill it in and apply for this payment of €350. There is nothing in the form asking a person what he or she is earning. This question is found in the form for a jobseeker's payment but the main form just tells people to put down their details and send it in. The form for a jobseeker's payment asks for a person's earnings but there is no question on the main form so how can the Government ask people in a job earning €200 or €250 per week to submit a sheet of paper that does not ask them for their details? We need to look at this properly and make sure the people who are taking the funding will not be in a position where they will have to repay this money afterwards. It is up to us, not them, to get it right.

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