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

I am not aware of anyone who is considering cutting Lisa's payment, if I accurately picked up the Deputy's description of her case. It sounds like she was earning €300 or €400 a week, and nobody I am aware of is considering cutting the pandemic unemployment payment in that circumstance, and certainly not in the near future when we are still in the early phases of the pandemic. I have not heard anyone expressing horror at people getting €350 a week. I am the head of the Government that introduced this payment, which is one of the most generous welfare schemes in response to pandemic unemployment in the world, and I stand over it. We introduced it because we wanted to get money to people quickly - to people who needed it and who lost their jobs largely because of a Government order to close the businesses in which they worked. We stand over doing that. We wanted to do something a bit more logical or fair, which was to give people 70% or 80% of their previous income, with floors and ceilings, but we could not do that and so we had to just put out a flat payment. That is what we did and we stand over doing so. That flat payment is €350 a week, which is 70% of average wages in the sectors most affected, as I explained previously. People are trying to connect this matter to low pay, but I do not accept that argument. Someone working full time for 38 or 39 hours a week on the minimum wage of €10.30 an hour would have been earning over €400 a week. Nobody is suggesting that the €350 be reduced in that case. Someone working a full week on the living wage would also have been earning more than €350. Nobody is suggesting for a second that any of the people in that category should have their pandemic unemployment payment cut. What has been identified, which is a commonsense issue that many others have noted, is that some people who were working only ten hours a week, perhaps earning €20 an hour and €200 a week throughout January and February, are now getting €350 a week.

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