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

As I stated, the Government will not be found wanting. I thank the Deputies for their comments regarding the staff of the Department of Social Protection. I am very proud to head up and be Minister of that Department because what the staff have done has been amazing. It has been a monumental effort across the board by staff in every county. I offer my thanks to them because they are the ones who made sure people got their payment on time and when they needed it. It was not just the PUP; there is a plethora of other payments that we pay out of our Department and all those payments were made. My Department has stood by people. We have been here to help during the pandemic and that will continue to be the case as the economy reopens and we help get people back to work. That is what we want to do. We want to help people who cannot get their old jobs back. We want to work with them, help them to retrain and reskill and support them in moving into a new career. Some people have been out of work for a long time and we want to help to build their confidence, help them to fill up the forms, get their CVs together and consider areas in which they might need to reskill or upskill.

Throughout the pandemic, the Government has supported the industries that have been particularly badly impacted by Covid. We will continue to help them in the weeks and months ahead as they get back on their feet.

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