Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We are all in this together; give me a break. If the Government goes ahead with the cuts instigated for the PUP, not only will it do a great injustice to hundreds of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs and income as a result of the pandemic and the measures taken by the Government to address it, but it will also do something very dangerous in undermining the collective social solidarity that we need, now more than ever, to address the rising infection rates and the new restrictions that must be imposed, with more restrictions almost certainly coming down the line. The Government would be playing with people's lives and livelihoods in a very dangerous way if it did not restore the PUP.

In the self-absorbed and self-obsessed world that people like the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, seem to inhabit, where they are more interested in attacking the public health team in a cynical and politically motivated way, maybe €50 or €100 of a loss in income means nothing. It may be a trifle, irrelevant to the political and self-obsessed considerations that seem to drive certain people in this Government. For ordinary working people who are suffering, whose mental health has been affected and who have lost their jobs and incomes, €50 or €100 is the difference between keeping one's head above water and drowning in bills and loan or mortgage repayments that cannot be made or insurance costs. There are daily costs that are hard enough to manage at the best of times but it becomes significantly harder when one loses a job and income is cut to €350 and impossible when it is cut to €300 or €250.

Members of the Government must step out of the bubble and get their heads around this. I got messages about this all day yesterday.

For example, a musician said that he has his NCT coming up this week, and that costs €55. If he has to get his car fixed, it could cost him €200. He has the banks now crawling all over him because the Government has lifted the moratorium on mortgage repayments. He has his landlord crawling all over him who could evict him if he cannot manage the rent. What is that musician supposed to do?

What is the taxi driver supposed to do? In the next few months, taxi drivers whose cars are more than ten years old have to prepare now to decide whether they can afford a new car. They cannot because they have lost a year's income. Given the suitability test and the NCT that they have to take and the insurance they have to pay, how are they supposed to do it? They cannot do it. The Government needs to get their heads around this and get out of the bubble.

The Government should note today the opinion polls, which show 63% of people are in favour of more severe restrictions to deal with the Covid threat. That is a big sacrifice that people are making, just as they have made all year. They will undermine that commitment people have to solidarity and to protecting our older and more vulnerable citizens and the front-line healthcare workers who are protecting us if they smash people's income and cut it to the point that they cannot manage. I urge the Government to think about this. They will be making a very dangerous mistake if they do not restore these payments. Nothing has changed since March and April in terms of the costs that people have. Nothing has changed in the rents or mortgages they have to pay, the insurance they have to pay, the childcare costs, the costs of feeding their family and all the rest of the costs that people have to survive, but the Government has cut their income at the same time and its measures mean hundreds of thousands more will lose their jobs. People are willing to accept those job losses if it means that we get out of this mess and save lives, but if the Government does this, it will be stabbing in the back the people who are putting themselves on the line.

I refer to some of the Government's excuses for not doing this, for instance, the cost. Has the Government even bothered to listen to the fiscal advisory council? I am a member of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight, which met the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC. Yesterday, it its statement, the council made it absolutely clear there would be no fiscal problem in restoring the PUP. In fact, if more restrictions were likely and if we continue in the period where there is grave uncertainty and large numbers of people out of work, they recommended maintaining and increasing the economic stimulus. I asked IFAC officials directly if there was a fiscal problem with restoring the PUP payments and they said that the Government has latitude. In fact, they were urging that money continue to be put into families, workers and households pockets for macroeconomic reasons as well as for reasons of economic justice and fairness. That argument, therefore, is simply nonsense. It is the Government reverting to type with a penny-pinching austerity ideology and a fundamental class prejudice about people who, through no fault of their own, must rely on social welfare payments to sustain themselves through this period. The Government should drop that nonsense, and drop that dishonest argument that there is a fiscal imperative that requires it to cut the PUP. IFAC does not think so. Frankly, they are not exactly agents of the radical left. If they are saying that, we can reasonably take it that from a fiscal point of view, it is entirely acceptable to restore the PUP.

It is nauseating that the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Varadkar, tried to present himself the other night on "Claire Byrne Live" as some sort of champion of the poor and the dispossessed. We heard him state the reason the Government cannot restore the PUP is consideration of all the other people on lower social welfare payments. That is a sickening argument. In fact, the Government should increase disability, jobseeker's and all other payments to the same rate as the PUP. The income that people on disability have to survive on is an absolute scandal as it is. Similarly, there are no jobs to seek for tens of thousands of people who are out there who would like to work but are on the jobseeker's payment. They should also receive the social solidarity of the PUP in the current extraordinary circumstances.

On the grounds of fairness and maintaining the social solidarity, we need to deal with Covid-19 and, indeed, on the grounds of macroeconomic prudence to sustain our economy through this period, I urge the Government to restore the PUP and the wage subsidy payments or it will feel the wrath and anger of people. It will demoralise people and it will add to the heavy burden and hardship they are going through having to deal with this pandemic if the Government pulls the economic and financial rug from under the families and workers that we depend on to protect us against Covid-19.

I would like to say a particular word regarding some of the groups hardest hit by all of this. Taxi drivers are due to have a drive protest on Friday. They have cancelled it because of the restrictions but they will be outside the Dáil tomorrow at 12.30 p.m. in small numbers to highlight their plight. Music, entertainment and events people, bar and restaurant workers, caterers and tourism industry workers, all of whom have lost their jobs and incomes as a result of the pandemic measures, need to be supported. If we are all in it together, the Government has no choice, morally or in any other way, but to restore the PUP payments.

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