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

I thank the Deputies for raising these very important issues. The Government has not been found wanting in terms of supporting people during the pandemic. A sum of €7.6 billion has been spent on the PUP to date, with 23 million individual payments made and more than 850,000 people having received support.

As regards the future of the PUP, I am working with my colleagues in government, namely, the Ministers for Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance, the Taoiseach and the Cabinet committee, on the issue. We plan to bring forward proposals on the future of the PUP in early June. The one thing I can say is that the Government has been clear that there will be no cliff edge for people. We will have a better sense of how things are going in terms of the vaccine roll-out which, thankfully, is proceeding very well, the number of new cases and the trajectory of the virus. Things are improving. We will have a clearer picture at that stage in terms of the number returning to work. As I stated, the Government has not been found wanting.

In the context of people who reached the age of 66 in the past year or so, at that stage they qualify for the State pension. It is only people aged between 18 and 66 who qualify for unemployment payments.

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