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

The Deputy is welcome back.

It is important to state that there are three elements to what the Government announced yesterday. The day of remembrance and recognition will recognise the 9,000 people who have died from Covid on this island and all workers, all volunteers and the general public for the efforts they made to help us bring this pandemic under control. That is the first element. There will be a four-day weekend, running from 17 to 20 March, with a State ceremony and service most likely on Sunday, 20 March.

There will be a new public holiday from which all workers in the public and private sectors will benefit. It will be an extra day off for which workers will be fully paid. People who have to work or choose to work on that day will get a day off in lieuor double pay. I appreciate that those who are not in employment or who are self-employed will not but we tried to cover as many people as we could.

The tax-free recognition payment of €1,000 will be paid to more than 100,000 front-line healthcare workers. It is difficult to know where to draw the line with these things. We gave it a great deal of thought and had some consultation and we decided that those who would receive this additional payment were those who worked in clinical settings, wore masks and gowns every day, were employees of the State and were exposed to Covid patients every day. I do not mean just at risk of being exposed to someone who might have Covid, but those who definitely were exposed to people who had Covid, were in clinical settings and did all of that at a time when there were no vaccines. Those are the criteria that we have applied. They cover more than 100,000 people. Agency workers are included if their agencies were contracted to the HSE. An agency nurse, agency cleaner or agency paramedic working side by side with regular HSE employees is included in this payment. I am happy to give that clarification. However, where someone worked for a private company, for example, a private hospital, GP practice, pharmacy or private swab centre, he or she is not covered. There were substantial fees paid to those businesses and companies for the work they did during the pandemic. Many have already paid a bonus to their staff and can do so if they choose to. Up to €500 of the €1,000 can be paid without any taxation.

There will be further information today. It will relate to the criteria for those who are covered by the payment and those who are not. I can confirm that agency workers in public hospitals who were contracted or seconded to the HSE, if that makes sense, or a public body will be covered.

We do not have the membership or terms of reference of the panel finalised yet but that will be done in the near future.

When will the payment be made? It is our objective to pay it in February or March. There is an issue with legislation. This will require primary legislation to amend the Finance Act and the Social Welfare Consolidation Act. The latter need to be amended in order that we can make the payment exempt from income tax, USC and PRSI. That can be done quite quickly, and that is the objective in order that we can make these payments to people in their regular payroll payments in February or March.

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