Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. Covid-19 has had a profound effect on our citizens and the Government has taken significant steps to cushion the impact of the crisis on households and businesses. Expenditure Report 2021 outlined the significant additional resources allocated to Departments in response to Covid-19. At that time, gross voted expenditure of €87.1 billion was estimated for 2020. This represents an increase of €16.7 billion relative to the allocation set out in the 2020 Revised Estimates published last December. This was primarily driven by additional expenditure to support our key front-line services in responding to Covid-19 and support workers and businesses devastated by the impact of the virus.

The Government's response has been driven by the overarching need to protect our citizens from the virus and to ensure that our health service can respond effectively to meet demand for services while dealing with the impact of the pandemic. As the Deputy will be aware, the Government introduced the Covid restrictions support scheme, enhanced the employment wage subsidy scheme and reinstated the top rate of the Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment.

Gross voted social protection measures amounting to just over €30.3 billion were set out in Expenditure Report 2021. Taking account of the impact of the Christmas bonus, this would have brought social protection expenditure to just over €30.7 billion, reflecting the position of the labour market at that time. However, the Further Revised Estimate for 2020, presented to the Dáil on 4 November, set out expenditure of over €31.5 billion, an increase of more than €800 million relative to the position on budget day in October.

This increase from budget day reflects the increase in recipients of the Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment, the reintroduction of the €350 weekly rate, the cash flow impact of the change in the frequency of employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, payments and the increase in the rates of same. Finally, I note that the move from level 3 to level 5 has added approximately €40 million per week to the cost of the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS.

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