Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to address the House today. We are all aware of the sudden and sustained impact that Covid-19 has had on our everyday lives. The priority for the Government throughout this crisis has been twofold: first to protect public health and limit the spread of the virus and second to put in place income supports that mitigate the financial impact on households.

Following the onset of the crisis, my Department mobilised quickly not only to introduce new payments but to build new IT systems and to reorganise and redeploy staff to ensure that it could deliver these payments and support our citizens. Supports such as the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, and the enhanced Covid-19 illness benefit payment have been absolutely vital over the past ten months.

Since last March my Department has made more than 14 million payments under the pandemic unemployment payment scheme to more than 820,000 people at a total cost to date of more than €5.5 billion. The size of those figures reflect the scale of the challenge. I am acutely aware of the difficulties being faced by individuals and families across the State. My Department has taken hundreds of thousands of calls on our income support helpline, hearing from people directly about the issues they face.

In the time available to me, I will outline a range of supports available from my Department to help those affected by the pandemic, beginning with the PUP. The pandemic unemployment payment was introduced on 15 March 2020 and remains an important income support for hundreds of thousands of workers and their families. The PUP is a simple, quick payment that ensures flexible and timely support to those who lose their employment because of the pandemic. This week, my Department issued payments to more than 475,000 people on the PUP at a cost of almost €143 million.

Since 24 December, the number of people in receipt of PUP has increased by almost 200,000. This outlines in stark terms the impact that level 5 restrictions have had on the labour market. It is important today to acknowledge the staff of the Department who worked tirelessly over the Christmas and new year period to process payments and ensure that the people who needed our help got it in a quick and timely manner. As I said earlier, the total spend on PUP to date has been more than €5.5 billion, which will rise significantly further in the weeks and months ahead.

It is worth bearing in mind that what was originally intended to be a six-week payment when it was introduced last March will now be in place for over a year and beyond.

The scale of the Government's intervention through the PUP is unprecedented in scale but it was the right thing to do for our citizens. Research undertaken by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, examined the impact on family incomes of Covid-19-related job losses and found that 400,000 families would have seen their disposable income fall by more than 20% in the absence of policy measures such as the PUP and the wage subsidy scheme. The ESRI also found that the PUP and temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS, measures were particularly effective in cushioning families at the lower end of the income distribution from losses. In fact, the ESRI noted that some low-income families were financially better off than while in work. In its analysis of the budget changes, the ESRI also concluded that income inequality and poverty rates would have increased significantly in the absence of Covid-related policy supports such as the PUP and the wage subsidy scheme.

Throughout the pandemic, we have supported people who have been diagnosed with Covid-19 or who were required to self-isolate through the enhanced Covid-19 illness benefit of €350. Since last March, almost 121,000 people have been medically certified for receipt of the Covid-19 enhanced illness benefit and there are currently over 9,700 people in payment. The enhanced illness benefit encourages people to not go to work when they should be isolating. This is essential to limit and slow down the spread of the virus, to keep the number of people affected to a minimum and to reduce a peak of cases which would cause further pressures on the health system. The support is payable for two weeks where a person is isolating as a probable source of infection of Covid-19 and up to ten weeks where a person has been diagnosed with Covid-19.

In addition to these core income supports, a range of other targeted measures have been put in place as part of budget 2021 to address issues that have arisen during the pandemic. Increases to the qualified child payments are benefiting 419,000 children who are most in need. The value of the living alone allowance increased by €5. This means that the value of the allowance has more than doubled over a two-year period. My Department has put in place flexibility to support lone parents where maintenance payments have been disrupted during the pandemic. In response to concerns about increased domestic violence, my Department has introduced flexibility to the rent supplement scheme in order that victims of domestic violence can get the payment for three months without a means test. The school meals programme has remained in operation throughout the pandemic, including during the summer and Christmas breaks. Funding continues to be provided by my Department to run the programme during school closures.

The fuel season was extended in 2020 by four weeks, at an additional cost of almost €37 million. Since 4 January, the weekly fuel allowance payment has also been increased by €3.50 per week to €28 for a period of 28 weeks. We have put arrangements in place so that births and deaths can now be registered online without the need for people to attend offices in person. As announced in budget 2021, parent's leave and benefit will be extended from two weeks for each parent to five weeks. This addresses concerns raised about the impact of the pandemic on parents of new babies. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, is working on the necessary legislation in order that parents can avail of this additional leave as soon as possible.

Covid-19 has had a significant impact on social protection expenditure. The 2020 Revised Estimates published in December 2019, prior to the onset of Covid-19, projected expenditure for the Department to be in the region of €21.2 billion. By November 2020, when I appeared before the select committee with further Revised Estimates, expenditure up to the end of 2020 was expected to be €31.57 billion, nearly €10.4 billion higher than pre-Covid estimates. The vast majority of this additional spending is directly related to the measures the Government has taken to support workers and their employers. Deputies will also recall that the Christmas bonus was paid to PUP recipients and those receiving similar payments, provided they had been on the payment for at least four months. This is in addition to payment of the bonus to recipients of long-term social welfare payments. The Christmas bonus in 2020 cost a total of €389 million, its highest level ever.

While there is light at the end of the pandemic tunnel with the roll-out of vaccines, the impact of Covid-19 on people's incomes and economic activity continues to be uncertain. Earlier this month, I secured Government approval for the PUP to remain in place at the current rates of payment until 31 March this year. Obviously, given the extension of current restrictions until 5 March, we will now need to examine the future of the PUP beyond the end of March. That is a discussion I will be having with my Government colleagues over the next few weeks, taking account of where we are in terms of the trajectory of the virus and the roll-out of the vaccine programme. I assure the House that the Department of Social Protection will continue to support people for so long as restrictions apply as we have done at all times over the past year. Equally important, my Department is committed to assisting and supporting people to return to employment as we move beyond Covid-19.

As a former Minister with responsibility for business and enterprise, I am keenly aware of the impact of the pandemic on the livelihoods of the self-employed. Throughout the course of the past ten months, I have engaged regularly with businesses and groups representing the self-employed. I was pleased, with the support of my Oireachtas colleagues, to make changes in order that self-employed people can now earn up to €960 over an eight-week period, while retaining their full PUP entitlement. This is something that has been particularly welcomed by workers in our arts and entertainment sector and, indeed, our taxi drivers. I was also pleased to secure the extension into 2021 of the Covid-19 enterprise support grant. This was introduced in August 2020 to assist microbusinesses and provides up to €1,000 to cover restart costs where a person transitions from the PUP back into self-employment. This once-off grant is available to small businesses and is payable to those employing fewer than ten people with an annual turnover of less than €1 million. To date, almost 8,600 businesses have been supported under this grant at a cost of just under €8 million.

The July jobs stimulus package, designed in response to the Covid-19 crisis, comprises an investment of €200 million in skills development, work placement, training and education, recruitment subsidies and job search and assistance measures. My Department will be ramping up its employment supports across the board. Measures will include the expansion of the local employment service, LES, into new areas that currently do not have a LES service. We have also secured funding for an additional 3,000 places on community employment, CE, and Tús schemes. An additional 100 job coaches will be assigned to Intreo offices across the country to help people get back to work. We have waived the waiting period for persons on the PUP who want to avail of the back to education allowance and back to work allowance schemes. Of course, we will also be working closely with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in signposting people towards the 35,000 extra higher education places, apprenticeship schemes and other supports that are available. These and other supports will be a key focus of the new pathways to work strategy, which is currently being developed.

Before I conclude, I pay tribute to the dedication and hard work of the staff in my Department. Throughout a very difficult year they have shown great flexibility and commitment to meet the extraordinary demands placed upon them. They have processed the equivalent of eight years' worth of claims through the PUP scheme alone, and they have managed to do all that while still keeping on top of the day-to-day work of processing pensions, disability, carer's and other payments. The Department staff provide a great service in every county and I know Members will join me today in acknowledging their efforts and Trojan work over the past year.

I will now hand over to my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien, and I look forward to hearing Deputies' contributions.

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