Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

From a social protection perspective, Covid-19 has done two things in recent months. It has put a spotlight on the adequacy and effectiveness of our social welfare rates. It has shown how, very quickly, one Department can make major changes. As soon as Covid hit, two things became clear. People who had lost their jobs could not live on €203 per week. We could not expect a person out sick from work to wait for six days before accessing social welfare supports. In fact, the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, when introduced in March, was set at a rate almost 75% higher than the regular jobseeker’s payment of €203. That in itself is recognition of the inadequacy of the €203 payment. That issue really needs to be looked at in respect of our social welfare system as a whole and how, at the least, people who rely on the social protection system should be protected from poverty. That should be a basic aim but it is one we are not meeting.

I wish to raise again the workers who were denied the PUP based on age. It is age discrimination. It is a great shame that when we start providing supports, especially in the midst of a global pandemic, we do so based on age. I raised this issue with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, when this report was discussed at the committee some weeks ago. The report states that 23% of taxi drivers, as an example, are 66 years and over. People working beyond pension age in many cases are doing so because they cannot afford to retire and live on a non-contributory State pension. Yet, they were cast aside in March when they lost their jobs and had to close their businesses. To add to that, they were excluded from the enterprise support grant of up to €1,000.

The same can be said for young people at work, especially those who worked to make their way through college. So many worked weekends, but there should have been some mechanism to give them a percentage of the PUP and make that support available to them. The payment of arrears due needs to be accelerated. There are people who waited weeks for the PUP due to issues. When they eventually got it, they just got a week's worth of payment. That has left people owed money and those arrears need to come into effect very quickly. The closure of the PUP, which I raised with the Tánaiste earlier on, to new applicants at the end of the year needs to be postponed to provide certainty for workers should there be additional restrictions in January. I know nobody wants to see that but some workers will be worried over the Christmas period about the new year and we need to make sure the PUP is there for people should they need it. Further plans to cut the PUP in the new year should also be abandoned.

I noted, having raised the issue of the taxing of the PUP with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Humphreys, in committee last week, that the Government have gone out of their way to backdate tax owed on the PUP in the Finance Bill this week. When the PUP was introduced in March, it came in under an urgent needs payment, which is not taxable, yet through the Finance Bill people will be taxed right back to March. It is a great shame that the same effort does not go into taxing banks and vulture funds that goes into taxing ordinary people who will face a tax bill, some of which they did not expect.

Going forward, when we look at returning to education and returning to work for many people whose jobs may not be there when we come to the end of this pandemic, we need to make that as easy as possible. I am dealing with someone just now, for example, on jobseeker's who came back about eight months ago from New Zealand, wanted to get through on the vocational training opportunities scheme, VTOS, had 147 days of the qualifying period and needs 156. We need flexibility in the system when we are supporting people back into work or education. We need to do everything possible to support those people. There has been some flexibility shown in relation to the PUP but we also need to see that for jobseekers. Anyone who is willing to take up a scheme or a course should be able to do that easily and we should not be putting roadblocks in place. I hope that flexibility will be there for those people hoping to return to work or education after this.

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