Fury over Taoiseach’s Covid payment insult
Leo Varadkar with Simon Harris yesterday
LEO Varadkar has been slammed for accusing people left jobless by the coronavirus pandemic of milking the system.
The Taoiseach said there are people
“making more” from the emergency unemployment benefits than if they were at work.
And he suggested they won’t return to work unless the Government slashes payments.
Mr Varadkar said he plans to cut coronavirus unemployment benefits ahead of the special wage subsidies to address this.
Sinn Fein finance spokesman Pearse Doherty hit back at the “Tory” Taoiseach.
He said it was completely inappropriate for Mr Varadkar “to once again take gratuitous pot shots at the most underpaid in society”. Mr Varadkar was speaking to the Dermot and Dave Show on Today FM yesterday morning.
He said: “There are in fact people making more on the Covid payments than they were working part-time and some employers are actually telling us that it’s hard to get people to go back to work because of that.
“Having said that, I don’t think it will be possible to discontinue it at the middle of June, we’ll have to go beyond that because people have to be given the opportunity to return to work and there are lots of businesses that still won’t be able to reopen at the middle of June, so we do intend to extend it.
SF’S Pearse Doherty
“I can’t say exactly for how long it will be extended.
“One thing we will probably extend is the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme longer than the Pandemic Unemployment Payment because we’ll be encouraging employers to take people back on, to transition them from the pandemic payment to the wage subsidy scheme.
“So when you’re offered your job back, if you refuse it you actually lose your pandemic unemployment payment, but your employer will be able to take you back on the wage subsidy scheme so we will pay most of the wages for the employer.
SUPPORTS
“That’s all about getting people back to work.” Mr Varadkar later indicated he would be in favour of extending the wage supports scheme out as far as October, the same as is being planned in the UK.
Mr Doherty hit back at Mr Varadkar’s comments, saying “nobody can be left behind”.
He told the Irish Mirror: “These latest comments from the Taoiseach are an effort from him to set the mood music to the Government reducing or stripping
away the Covid payments from people among those really bearing the brunt of this crisis.
“Sinn Fein are determined not to let this happen. “Leo Varadkar likes to say we are all in this together but everything else he says suggests otherwise. “Nobody can be left behind during this crisis.
“It is so utterly demoralising to people that in the middle of a pandemic when there is still so much anxiety, so much worry, that the Taoiseach feels it’s appropriate to once again take gratuitous pot shots at the most underpaid in society.
“Instead of quipping about people supposedly earning more on the Covid payments, perhaps the Taoiseach and the Government should pay more attention to why we have so many people earning so little and why they had to endure such precarious employment conditions in the first place.
“How does the Taoiseach expect families to live a comfortable life or to put a roof over their heads on such low wages?
“His latest remarks come after he also suggested people in the North should be grateful to the Tories, a deliberate and opportunistic insult.
“All of this rhetoric is intended to divide and distract but in reality, it just underlines where Fine Gael priorities lie.
“They are most certainly not on the side of workers and not on the side of families under pressure.”
Meanwhile, Mr Varadkar also confirmed the grave news that the economy is looking at black hole of up to €30billion this year.
But he said the prudent management of the economy in recent years means we can see our way through it without going broke.
He was visiting one of the Government’s contact tracing centre on D’olier Street in Dublin city centre, when he said: “The country will spend €30billion more than we make in taxes – that is borrowed money. Thankfully because the country has been well managed and run for the past few years, we have the capacity to borrow but we can’t borrow indefinitely forever.
“Every day we see a different group coming out suggesting we provide a billion for this and €15billion for that and I understand that. “But I need to be frank with people.
“It is not going to be possible for the State to compensate every business, sector and individual for all of the money that they have lost as a consequence of this pandemic.
“The amount of money coming in as revenue has collapsed and our bills are mounting in terms of welfare supports, wage subsidies and so on. “So the economic picture is very difficult and choices will have to be made by the future Government.”