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

I will allow time for him to do that. When this pandemic payment was paid, it was welcomed by many people. I said to the Minister, prior to its launch, that the scheme would have been fairer if people had been paid relative to the wages they were earning at the time. Some people were working part time and earning €100 a week while going to school and finishing their leaving certificate year or going to college and ended up earning €350 a week from the pandemic payment. I suggest that on the application form for the payment, an applicant could have put down how much he or she was earning and signed that, to the best of their knowledge, that was what they were earning. Everybody could then have been paid up to 100% of their wages and probably 85% of earners would have been covered up to their full wages. With the money that measure would have saved, we could have increased the payment which would have meant that people would not have had to stall on mortgage payments and go back to the banking sector looking for solutions to knock-on effects. A person who signed the application form to confirm the truth of its contents to the best of his or her knowledge would have been made liable for giving the correct information. Down the line, we could have gone back to the people who did not give the right information about their wages. In those circumstances, up to 80% of workers would have been paid 100% of their wages and that would have made things easier. I understand that the pandemic hit us hard and that the Minister introduced the measures that he did but what I have outlined would have been fairer and that did not happen.

There are people over the age of 66 who are working and have to work because they are still providing for their family members who are in college. We asked the Government to top up their payments to a total of €350. That was not an additional €350 but a top-up to that amount for people over 66 who are still working. We were told that people can only receive one social welfare payment. We only wanted one social welfare payment for those people. We wanted people who are still working and paying tax in this country to get a top-up on the pension payment to a total of €350. That would have helped such people and their businesses but that did not happen.

Some people left school at 16 and went working for a variety of reasons, for example that they had to support the family household. Those people have been paying tax and PRSI since they were 16 and yet qualified for no payment, even though some of them were in apprenticeships and paying tax and PRSI through those apprenticeships. Because they were not 18, they qualified for nothing, even though they had to cease work and sit at home. That needs to be looked at. Those people were working. We were looking for a top-up on their payments. Other people who were aged 18, working only part-time hours and paying a minimal amount of tax got €350, while others who were working and paying tax got nothing. I will give the Minister a chance to answer.

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