Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise the concern that taxi drivers have about the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. They have heard directly from the Taoiseach and the Minister for Transport, Deputy Ryan, that the PUP will be extended until February 2022 and that self-employed people will continue to be able to earn €960 after expenses over an eight-week period while retaining their full PUP entitlement. The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, is telling them that a phased reduction will start on 7 September and as PUP recipients go onto the €203 rate in each phase, they will be transferred to standard jobseeker's terms. Many taxi drivers are already on the €203 rate, some of them because they invested in new cars in the weeks and months before Covid hit, for which they are suffering as a consequence. Others will move onto the €203 rate in the coming phases. They are not jobseekers. They are worried and concerned. Will the Tánaiste spell out how they will be treated in the weeks ahead? Will they stay on the PUP?

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