Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, it has to be said that the measures taken and announced last Friday were necessary in the public health interest to save lives and to protect people. The vast majority of people accept the premise upon which those measures were taken and announced, on the advice of our public health doctors and NPHET. They are necessary to get the numbers down and stabilise the number of cases in Dublin in particular, which had risen too high in recent times. The same principle applies across the country. We need to get the numbers down and stabilise numbers across the country. That can be done by people adhering to the basic public health guidance. It is important that that happens because, ultimately, we want to keep our schools open, maintain health services and keep as many people as possible at work. Level 3 is not equivalent to the lockdown we experienced earlier this year in that many sectors of the economy are still working. It is an important objective of Government to keep as many people working as we possibly can while keeping the numbers down. The hospitality-tourism sector in particular, along with arts and culture, is bearing the brunt of Covid-19 because it is a disease that in many ways undermines the very nature of tourism and hospitality. That is a key point.

The PUP originally came in, as the Deputy will be aware, as a 12-week scheme. We are now looking at a much longer horizon for the payment and one of the decisions we took in July was to extend it out to April of next year. This Government has put €3.5 billion into the payment; that is what it has cost. This year alone, Government will spend €28 billion on social protection. That is an unprecedented intervention by the State and by Government in supporting incomes. Rates have come down in line with the decision in July but they are still very closely approximated to what people would have been earning prior to coming onto the Covid payment. The Deputy knows that is the situation.

We now have to look beyond April and realise that the impact of Covid, particularly economically and financially, could be felt right through the entirety of 2021. The fiscal planning and the planning around social protection budgets, therefore, has to, and will, take that into consideration. We are very anxious to support people in every way possible. That is why a multimillion euro initiative was taken to dramatically increase the number of places available in retraining in terms of education to enable people to take up employment in different areas and where investment is going such as retrofitting and other areas in the economy.

On evictions, the Deputy is wrong in her assertions. The Government legislation is not weak. It is more robust than what was in place because what was in place could not be extended without breaching the Constitution. Those are the facts. Nonetheless, what we have put in place in its stead was a provision whereby any renter in difficulty because of Covid will not have his or her rent increased and will not be evicted. That is unlike what has happened in Northern Ireland, for example. The measures we have taken here could be adopted by the Government in the North. Our protections are stronger than in the North and other jurisdictions. That should be acknowledged. No rent increase or eviction for renters affected by the virus will happen because of the legislation we introduced. That legislation applies nationwide.

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