Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

On a similar issue of rewarding workers who played a critical role during Covid, obviously we all accept and welcome the announcement that front-line workers are to get a pandemic bonus, although it should be extended to carers, as has been discussed. There is no doubt that group were on the front line of the Covid response. What does the Taoiseach have to say, if he is not willing to extend that bonus to them, to groups such as retail workers and those who worked in supermarkets? They are traditionally low paid but they kept food on the table during the Covid pandemic. Without them, we would not have got through the pandemic. They are very low paid, and I might add to that private security workers. They work in many of those places, also worked all through the pandemic and are incredibly low paid. What is the Government going to give in terms of a pandemic bonus and reward, long term, to those groups of workers? Does the Taoiseach agree they deserve something like what the Dunnes Stores workers have won, namely, a 10% pay increase, or that the minimum wage would be increased dramatically to something like €15 an hour, as against the abysmally low level of pays these workers currently suffer? If we are serious about respecting the role they played, what long-term dividends is the Government going to give them in the aftermath of Covid?

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