Dáil debates

Thursday, 28 May 2020

Estimates for Public Services 2020 - Vote 37 - Employment Affairs and Social Protection (Revised Estimate)

 

1:55 pm

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

I am not sure that there were any direct questions. I disagree with Deputy Barry when he says that an outcry regarding the original pandemic payment led to the changes we made the following week. I do not think that is true, given that I was at the table. I will bring the Deputy back to 13 March when we introduced the illness Covid payment of €350 per week and allocated some €3.5 billion to it in the expectation that people were going to have to leave work because they would either be ill or potentially be a source of the infection. This was long before we realised that the decision was going to be made to actually shut down the economy. To be fair to both the officials who helped and the politicians who were there, in less than a week we came up with the IT system which managed to support 1.2 million people at €350 a week which was only arrived at because it was the equal payment of a base rate plus a qualified adult. In the case of all the industries that we knew were going to be particularly badly hit, we provided an 85% replacement for their income. It was very much considered. It certainly was not because of an outcry. It was because we had a responsibility to the people who were going to be stopped from earning their income.

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