Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join others in congratulating the Minister on her venture into grandmotherhood. I am sure she will do as good a job there as she has in every other role she has held. I welcome baby Arthur and wish her family well at such an important time. Sadly for the Minister, she will not get to spend the same kind of time as she might under normal circumstances because of the work she is doing.

I join others in thanking the Minister for the leadership she has given her Department and all the departmental staff who have worked so hard. They are front-line workers engaging with, in many cases, people in difficult circumstances. They are behind-the-scenes workers who have done an enormous job. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

We must be careful, however, that in our desire to recognise the people doing the work, we do not start clapping ourselves on the back for paying out social welfare to people who are in dire need. The Minister is certainly not doing so. I certainly hope no one in the Seanad would try to take credit for doing what is right. The people who the State is supporting are being supported with their efforts and the taxes they have paid. It is the least they should expect from the State. We have to be careful that in the euphoria of the billions of euro we are spending that we do not somehow become misguided, believing we are providing some sort of charity. We are not. It is how one would one want to respond as a society.

Like others, I hope that, in the not-too-distant future, the Minister will be able set out clearly where the whole pandemic unemployment payment is going and what extensions will be in place. Prior to Christmas we would have hoped that we would be in a better position in March. That is not coming to pass with the new variants and the less than clear pathway for a vaccine roll-out. We will, sadly, see people out of work who otherwise would have been in work. We are going to have to ensure that the State continues to stand behind them and their families.

I, like others, have met many people who are under enormous pressure. Many sad things have come out of this pandemic. There are people who have lost loved ones. There are people who, sadly, are no longer with us. There are people who have lost their livelihoods and their jobs. I hope they will be able to regain them. There are people who have lost their businesses.

There are winners, however, as there are in every conflict and every difficult situation. We see the pile of savings in the banks go from €1 billion at this time of the year to somewhere close to €12 billion. Some people, by virtue of being unable to spend, have significant savings. That masks the reality, however, that there are others who find it difficult to survive on the pandemic unemployment payment because, quite frankly, they lived normal lives prior to this pandemic. Through no fault of their own, they are now just barely getting by. All the normal payments are pushed out and they are hanging on by a thread.

I agree with others that the cost of heating homes is an enormous burden for people who are just barely getting by. That has been the case for many who got thrifty and careful. The reality now, however, is they find themselves in a situation where they are penny-pinching. With themselves and the kids at home, it is becoming particularly difficult with the cost of electricity and fuel generally. Will the Minister look at a system which could give some support to people who are in that difficult situation of trying to keep everything together?

While they go through a difficult period, there are others who have managed to save vast amounts of money over the past 12 months and, the minute lockdown finishes, will be out spending. At the same time, there will be another cohort still trying to pay off significant debts they accrued in that period. We will have a divided society for a long time as a result of this pandemic.

I spoke about the case of Sean Kilkenny in the House before. He has a horse carriage business in Dromoland Castle which was doing really well. Overnight, with no American tourists, his business was gone. He is on the pandemic unemployment payment but it does not feed between 20 and 40 horses.The schemes that have come out, with their various different caveats and aspects, do not fit his business. He does not own the property from which the business is operating - he is leasing and renting. He does not pay rates because he does not own the property but he has very significant costs. He is disseminated. He has lost the will to go on. He has family and friends around him who are trying to support him through it. We have to look wider and broader in trying to provide small, unique and bespoke businesses with a level of support that would get them through this prolonged period of the pandemic and somehow give them a baseline from which to start again. I thank the Minister for her continued efforts.