Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I begin by welcoming the Government's decision to reverse the cuts to the Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment and the employment wage subsidy scheme. I am delighted that the Government listened to me and my Sinn Féin colleagues. We had been calling for these reversals.

It goes to show how out of touch the Government was and is that it brought the cuts in in the first place but finally had to concede that they were wrong. It was good to hear a Fianna Fáil Deputy state that a wrong was righted, but when the cuts came in, Sinn Féin told the Government they were wrong. We welcome the U-turn by the Government. It shows that sometimes Sinn Féin can be right, as were the parties that supported us.

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