Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is no problem. I was asked why we established the pandemic payment in the way we did. The pandemic legislation is based on unemployment legislation that is currently the law of the land. The EU regulations are the regulations of the European Union. These determined the age categories between the ages of 18 and 66 to which we could pay the Covid-19 PUP.

The EU regulations govern our treatment of frontier workers. Under the current EU rules, the member state of residence is the member state responsible for the payment of unemployment benefit. All we did was follow the rules that currently exist in the Republic of Ireland with regard to employment legislation and the EU regulations governing member states' responsibilities with regard to unemployment assistance. Anything else would require new legislation at either the Irish or European level. As the Deputy will be aware, the current constitution of the Seanad prevents us from passing any further legislation or amending the original legislation passed in March.

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