Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I believe I answered that question in response to Deputy McDonald. We acknowledge that this payment is unprecedented, is one of the highest in the world and cannot go on forever as that would not be affordable for taxpayers, but we also acknowledge that it cannot be removed until people have the opportunity to return to their jobs.

Lots of people will not have that opportunity this side of the middle of June, so it will be necessary to extend it. That might be a decision for this Government or it might be a decision for the next one. We will have to see how things develop in the next couple of weeks.

People who are in the gig economy are self-employed and they can qualify. Lots of people who are self-employed have qualified for this payment.

The amount of €350 was not chosen for the reasons the Deputy contends. It was chosen because €350 is roughly 70% of the average income of people working in the sectors most affected, that is, retail, hospitality, construction, and accommodation and food. That is how we came up with the figure of 70%. What we originally wanted to do was to give people 70% of what they earned before but it was not possible to administer that. People would have waited weeks for any payment at all, so we decided on a round figure. That has created an anomaly. There are a lot of people, possibly 25% of people, in receipt of the payment who are actually getting paid more now in their pandemic employment payment than they were when they were working. They are mainly part-time workers. It is not a bad thing. I am not embarrassed about that. I am happy we did it, but it is an anomaly that will have to be dealt with in due course, in addition to the issue concerning the over 60s the Deputy mentioned.

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