Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The job of any government - or at least any centrist government - is to represent all the people and to take account of all interests and not seek to create conspiracy theories about the 1% or to divide capital from workers or the middle class from the working class. Any responsible government, any centrist government, any moderate government, which is what we have in Ireland, tries to represent the interests of the whole population as best it can and takes into account all the factors at play. Workers need jobs, and we always have to bear that in mind in our policies too.

To respond to the question about sick pay, once again the message has to be put out there loud and clear in case any worker gets the wrong end of the stick: any worker who is off sick as a consequence of Covid is entitled to the enhanced illness benefit of €350 per week. We are bringing in legislation to extend sick pay not just to meat plant workers but to all workers who do not currently benefit from a sick pay scheme. I intend to publish that legislation before the summer recess and I hope, with the Deputy's co-operation, that we will get it through. I imagine that, as is often the case, he will find a reason to oppose it.

I will have to check the position on serial testing. The reason is probably that the risk profile has fallen and the number of positives is so low, but I do not know that for sure and I will check it.

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