Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We all have that Chinese blessing, or curse in disguise - may we live in interesting times - rattling around in our heads. The times we are in at the moment are far more than interesting. They are challenging in the extreme. They are tragic for many and they do not have precedent in the past 100 years. We find ourselves, however, as a Dáil today in a very difficult position. These Estimates, normally, would have been subject to scrutiny by a Dáil committee. They only landed on our desks yesterday. We have had very limited time to parse and analyse them. We are being asked as a Parliament to approve spending measures of €6.8 billion with only 24 hours to analyse the enormous extra cost the State is about to incur yet we know the effect of not passing these Estimates will be to put families over a cliff edge of funding. That is not something that can be considered in any serious manner within this Parliament.

I acknowledge the briefing we received yesterday, facilitated by the assistant secretary in the Minister's Department. While that afforded us the opportunity to raise questions and seek clarification on numbers, we had a very short lead-in time to that. Most Deputies will agree that it made it very difficult to do any sort of meaningful analysis or deep dive into the numbers. I admit that, by and large, the numbers speak for themselves when one looks at them. There is nothing in them that took anybody in this House by surprise when we looked at them but as decision-makers and representatives for our communities, it is also our job to communicate to the people what is behind those numbers and the reasoning for them. That job is made all the more difficult by the fact that the Minister has more or less admitted that these are fictitious Estimates and that what is behind them is predicated on the basis that the policy direction will remain the same. However, we know that policy will change significantly if we decide to extend out. If we have the pandemic unemployment payment reverting to jobseeker's allowance after 12 weeks, it appears to have been conceded that that will not be the case.

Given the circumstances and the ongoing lack of clarity, I understand why that has to be the case. Reading the ESRI quarterly commentary, which only came out today, three different scenarios were outlined which may give us an idea of what our country may face in the medium term and allow forward planning, depending on which of these scenarios comes to pass. Is something similar being done within the Departments? Is scenario planning being done based on extension of pandemic unemployment payments, return to employment or on tapering these payments? If officials are doing that different form of modelling, those are the figures that we need to look at, which we can make educated commentary on, because we find ourselves in the strange position where we are debating something that we know will change significantly within the coming days and weeks.

The brief circulated to us yesterday highlighted a point that Deputies have previously queried and which was adverted to earlier. The analysis underpinning the statement from the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation stated that there are disincentive effects from the pandemic unemployment payment, when people end up better off on the payment than they would be in part-time or precarious work. I accept the point that other Deputies have made that this should point to how we treat precarious and part-time work. It should not be an indictment of the people who were working for those amounts and now find themselves better off. We should see it as an incentive to provide a floor to make work pay, to bring that forward and to begin to learn from it. I would appreciate a further explanation of the analysis that brought us to that understanding. I know the Minister rejected that approach of gaming the system. Do people feel that there are those who have been taken out of employment who are happy to be in that position? I do not accept that in that large swathe, there are people who would not prefer to get themselves back to work. By the same token, there are families who are now earning far less than they would if they were on jobseeker's allowance, such as people on pandemic unemployment payments who might have qualified dependents.

Is the Department sufficiently resourced? If officials know that somebody will be better off on regular jobseeker's allowance, are they managing to do that analysis? Are there sufficient resources in the Department to make sure that these people are processed? If they would have been receiving more, is the Department able to do this in a timely manner and move people across from the pandemic unemployment payment?

I refer to the maternity issue and the extension of maternity leave. There is an underpinning issue of fairness. There are new mothers who want to remain at home for all sorts of reasons. I agree with the previous speakers that we should facilitate that. I am not sure what the level of additional cost would be but these are figures that we would like to see so that we can make an informed decision.

It is Green Party policy to look at the idea of universal basic income. I have said previously that we have come close to that with the pandemic unemployment payment. We have come close to accepting the premise that everyone in our society needs that basic underpinning. The Government is making substantial State money transfers at present. Is the State data harvesting? Is the Department examining the effects of these payments, since there is a substantial outlay of money? Is this having an effect, either good or bad, on people who live in persistent poverty? Will there be a way at the end of this process to see if the pandemic unemployment payment, for example, had an impact on children living in poverty? There has been enormous State expenditure and it was not really a decision, since it had to be done. Will we get information back from this so we can begin to extrapolate that forward and see if there are useful things that we can do?

We are looking at a scenario of the pandemic unemployment payment moving to jobseeker's payments within a 12-week timeframe. Even if this is pushed out, we need to see a plan of how these Covid payments will taper into regular jobseeker's allowance payments. Essentially what we have at present is a two-tier welfare system. What I want to drive at in this is the provision that a person must be actively seeking work to be eligible for the jobseeker's allowance.

Were we to transfer people from the Covid payment, the PUP, into a regular jobseeker's payment, we know these people have just exited the workforce and did not want to. Their jobs ceased, in that they were working away but in a minute they found themselves unemployed because of the pandemic. Are we really going to ask such people whether they are actively seeking work? We know they are and that they have just left the workforce. For the sake of fairness, perhaps that is something we can put a hiatus on so that we are not unduly pressurising or impugning the dignity of people who we know want to get out and join the workforce.

I will advert to one specific figure, which is the 26% increase in the winter fuel allowance. I know from whence it arises because we have extended the winter fuel allowance. I want to make a point about the winter fuel allowance in general. There is a big difference in that fuel allowance between somebody in a well-insulated home and somebody who is in a 1950s G-rated property whose bucket of coal is just going up the chimney.

We can put policies in place that are part of a just transition or a green reboot to our economy. I am talking specifically about retrofitting social and affordable housing. There are things we can put in place now that would not just re-stimulate our economy but also would have a positive benefit in tackling things like fuel poverty. Are these things we are building in and considering at this time? I refer to this morning's ESRI report which talks about significant infrastructural projects. Are these things being considered?

I want to give the Minister a chance to revert to me with some answers.

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