Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to ask the Tánaiste today about the volume of job losses recently. It is destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. I am concerned that some of the losses are coming under the cover of Covid. I am not alone in that regard. All of the changes in banking will rip the heart out of so many rural and urban towns across the State. Ulster Bank's announcement affects 2,800 staff, Bank of Ireland is closing 88 branches affecting 1,400 staff and on top of that, the Kerry Group announcement of the loss of 150 jobs and Aer Lingus's job losses are reaching 600. These are just the jobs we hear about. There is a growing epidemic of job losses in all sectors and small businesses, and not just where we would expect some issues due to Covid.

The Central Statistics Office, CSO, has put the February adjusted unemployment rate at just under 25%, which is more than 330,000 people or one in four workers. The situation is even worse for young people, which is a real concern, with 57% of young people being out of work. This will be a scar on that generation and the body politic, collectively, will have to address it. We have a national crisis and we need to take responsibility in terms of how we are going to get out of this. Before the Tánaiste refers to them, I accept and welcome all of the income supports and business supports that have been put in place. I have, however, a real issue with the fact that Ireland is saying we are only eligible for €853 million from the EU recovery and resilience fund. This simply is not enough. I do not believe it is proportionate or fair. I know we have had a changed economic situation over the past years. Where is our national economic recovery plan? What are we going to do on the redundancies where ICTU has warned of hundreds of thousands of workers who could lose out on redundancy payments because of time spent on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, would not be counted?

Bearing all of this in mind, what is the Government's plan to ensure that some job losses are not being pushed out by some companies using Covid as cover? When will our national economic recovery plan be published? Specifically, what are we going to do to prevent the scarring of a generation of young people, given what they have gone through? Will the Tánaiste make a commitment today that workers who are made redundant will not lose out because of time spent on the PUP?

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