Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will speak for several minutes, after which I would like a response from the Taoiseach before I continue.

I start by sending sympathies to all of the bereaved, extending solidarity to all of the sick and wishing them a full recovery, thanking every worker on the front line and acknowledging the efforts of our people as they live with extraordinary public health restrictions on their lives.

I listened with great concern yesterday to the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, as he indicated that a cut would be made to the Covid-19 payment and the wage subsidy scheme in June. To cut or taper these interventions and supports would be wrong. Such a decision would represent a serious blow to workers and families who have lost their incomes as a result of this pandemic because, as we know, when a person loses a job, he or she still faces the cost of living, bills still need to be paid, money has to be found for the mortgage or the rent, food must be put on the table and children have to be provided and planned for. Those of us living in the real world know that €350 per week is the bare minimum needed to keep a show on the road. We know that it is the bare minimum needed to make it to the end of the week. To cut this payment would be to pull the rug from under the feet of so many and force those who can least afford it to pay for the economic fall-out from this emergency.

That such move is even being floated at this stage suggests that Fine Gael remains out of touch with the lives of workers and families and those bearing the brunt of this economic shock. The comments of the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, sent a shiver of apprehension down the spines of those who suffered untold hardship as the result of the vicious cuts meted out by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over the last decade. Many families were still struggling with the financial impact of their austerity policies from the last recession just as the pandemic hit. Those people remember the deluge of mean-spirited cuts of that era. They remember that in the last economic crisis Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil chose to protect the banks and the wealthy and that they chose to punish ordinary workers and families instead. They lived with the minimum wage being slashed. They lived with the numerous cuts to child benefit. They lived with the profound damage done to our public health service and to our housing system. All of these were slash and burn policies that aimed to service a debt that did not belong to the people. At the same time as this suffering was heaped on ordinary people, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil managed to ensure tax breaks for the vested interests and massive pay-outs for bondholders.

It is not lost on anyone that words like "unaffordable" and "unsustainable" are rattled off and deployed to describe financial measures that benefit ordinary people, but somehow money and resources are always found to preserve the privilege of those at the top. On the Fine Gael street banks are systemic but securing the livelihood of workers and families would always prove just too expensive. The reality is that we will have an unemployment crisis well beyond the summer. Whole sectors of our economy will need more than a couple of months to recover, to get back on their feet and workers will need to be supported and protected. Workers and their families need stability and certainty. At this point in time, they do not need announcements from Government that the €350 per week that they currently rely on is to be cut. Such an action would contradict the promise made at the outset of this crisis that ordinary workers and families would not be thrown overboard on this occasion. It would signal that the motto, "We are all in this together" was just a slogan in the end used to garner public goodwill. It would provide a telling glimpse of what is in store for workers and families should a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Government transpire.

There can be no return to austerity. The Taoiseach should be in no doubt that this is his first test. Will he give a commitment to the Dáil and, more important to workers and their families, that the payment of €350 will be maintained at its current rate and extended beyond June?

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