Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. I will take seven minutes and he will take three minutes.

What jumps out at me immediately is that we must have this discussion, this debate, this row in context. I state that because everything is always relative and proportionate to the whole. This morning, I read in The Irish Timesthat a report from the Swiss bank UBS stated that during the height of the pandemic, from April to July, the wealth of billionaires on the planet rose by more than one quarter, or 27.5% to be precise.

I would like the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, from the Green Party to listen to these details because these are the types of issues that I am familiar with representatives of the Green Party raising in the past. The wealth of billionaires on the planet is at a record high of some €8.7 trillion and these billionaires achieved this record high by betting on the recovery of global stock markets during the lockdown. We must, therefore, have this discussion about cuts to people's payments relative to the story I have just referred to, because, as the Deputy Paul Murphy pointed out earlier, Ireland has, shockingly, the fifth highest rate of billionaires per capita. That means there is a great deal of wealth sloshing around this country. We are talking today to tens of thousands of workers who, since 17 September, have lost €50 a week and more who, since 1 September, have lost more than €100 a week in the wage subsidy scheme.

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Some Members might think that is not a lot to lose. Both the Minister and the Minister of State quoted extensively from ESRI studies. The ESRI was asked to undertake an impact assessment of the introduction of the revised rates of payment since September 2020 and it found that the changes had very little impact on the risk of poverty. It is extraordinary that the ESRI could come up with that sort of finding 20 days after €50 per week was taken from those families. In the course of that 20 days, as moratoriums were lifted, they have been looking at bills from banks and landlords. Many of them are facing the possibility of eviction. We tried to have proposals for the restoration of the anti-eviction legislation introduced by the Government brought before the House today, but we were blocked from doing so.

This is a hugely important issue. Other Deputies have pointed out the cruelty of putting people in a situation where they cannot put food on the table or meet increased energy costs. The House should note that Bord Gáis is insisting on retrieving the €100 it gave to people with card meter bills by way of a 60% recoupment each time they make a payment. This means that on these cold days, if people put €20 in their meter, they will get approximately €8 of energy for it. That has to end. It is extremely cruel to families that are already struggling as we move into the winter. It should also be noted that if people are out of work for a long period, because of the pandemic and through no fault of their own, they will use more energy to keep their homes warm and bright. People are faced with more and more struggles but the Government thinks it is not so bad to take money from them. It as an arbitrary and cruel mechanism to make the books balance and extend fiscal prudence. Members of the Government should remember that this is not their money. It is not coming out of the back pocket of the Ministers for Finance or Employment Affairs and Social Protection. This money will ultimately be paid back by all of us, just as we are still paying back the bank bailout of €64 billion.

Under the EWSS, there has been a severe reduction in payments from €410 to €203 per week. Many workers cannot claim a top-up unless they are not rostered for work. In the case of Aer Lingus, for example, many employees are finding it impossible to get their bosses to sign their social welfare reforms. They are struggling from week to week without any income because of shoddy or irresponsible administration by the companies for which they work. In other countries, severe strictures are placed on companies that avail of a wage subsidy. For instance, CEOs cannot receive bonuses and it is not permissible to engage in tax avoidance via offshore subsidies. There is nothing like that in this State other than the requirement to show a 30% decline in turnover. Companies that made vast profits prior to the pandemic, including meat plants, Boston Scientific, Ryanair and Aer Lingus, have reserves built up from those profits but they have their hand out to the State to avail of this scheme. The cut in payments under the EWSS, which is hitting workers, is unjustifiable, as outlined in our motion.

I refer to a point that was repeatedly raised by both the Minister and the Minister of State in speaking against the motion, namely, the relevance of the pay that people were on prior to receiving the PUP. A total of 129,500 people are being paid at a rate of €300 a week on average, which represents in excess of 60% of prior average income for that group. Is it not clear to everybody that what is wrong in this country is the level of low pay that is predominant throughout the economy and is affecting the tens of thousands of workers who are the subject of this cut? The levels of low pay are shocking and probably among the greatest in Europe relative to our cost of living. If somebody is better off on PUP of €300 a week, it means they had to be earning less than €20,000 a year before the pandemic. That is a shocking indictment of the system under which we live. This week, the Government endorsed a 10 cent increase in the minimum wage. Hooray to that. It will go such a long way to enabling people to put more gas in their meter and make repayments to their landlords and banks.

What the Government is doing is immoral, not just on its own but also in the relative context of the wealth that exists in this society and the emergency we are facing. The previous Minister said that these supports were introduced in the context of the emergency arising out of the Covid pandemic. The pandemic has not gone away. The pandemic does not recognise bills and it does not recognise the desperation people are suffering. I ask the Government to do the right thing by reversing these cuts.

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