Richard Boyd Barrett challenges plans to cut €350 pandemic payment

Taoiseach, spokespeople for Fianna Fáil and ministers for your own party have been expressing horror at the idea that people who may have earned less when working before Covid-19 are now getting €350 and essentially using that to justify suggestions that the €350 payment for those people and indeed for many others who've already seen a reduction in income should be cut now I just want to ask do you think that is fair it doesn't chime with the motto we're all in it together for ministers and TDs who earn multiples of €350 a week to be telling people who were essentially earning poverty wages that €350 a week is too much for them and I cite for example Lisa who who I met on the Debenhams picket who by the way is giving permission for me to mention her name she's worked for Debenhams since she was 16 for 20 years she earned just under €350 but with overtime sometimes over €350 she was sacked by Debenhams unceremoniously thrown on the scrap heap and she says she doesn't want to be getting the €350 payment she's applying for jobs but she can't get a job at the moment do you honestly think it is fair to Lisa and to Lisa and to people like her who worked all their lives never claimed social welfare to even consider cutting her €350 payment If I picked up your description of that individual's case Lisa's case I'm not aware of anyone who's considering cutting her payment actually it sounds like she was earning maybe €300 or €400 a week so nobody is considering that I'm aware of cutting the pandemic unemployment payment in that circumstance certainly not in the near future when we are still in the early in phase one and he hasn't heard pandemic unemployment payment in that circumstance certainly not um in the near future when we're still in phase and phase one phase two the early phases of the pandemic um i have to say i haven't heard anyone expressing horror at people getting 350 euros a week you know i'm the head of the government that actually introduced this uh one of the most generous welfare schemes in response to pandemic unemployment in the world and i stand over it um we did it because we wanted to get money to people quickly people who needed it people who lost their jobs largely because of a government order to close the businesses in which they worked and we stand over doing that what we wanted to do was something a bit more logical and a bit more fair which was to say that people would get 70 or 80 percent of their previous income with floors and ceilings but we couldn't do that so we had to just put out a flat payment and that's what we did and we stand over doing that and that flat payment was 350 euros a week 70 of average wages in the sector is most affected as i explained before um i know people are trying to connect this to low pay and i don't accept that argument you know somebody who is working full time uh on the minimum wage 10 30 an hour working 38 um 39 hours a week would have been earning over 400 euros a week nobody's suggesting that that that that the 350 be reduced in that case somebody earning the living wage for example earning uh working a full week you know would have been earning more than 350 nobody's suggesting for a second that any of people any of the people in that category should have the pandemic unemployment cut what has been identified and it's a common sense thing and lots of other people have is there are people who were working maybe only 10 hours a week perhaps earning 20 euros an hour for 10 hours a week who were earning 20 200 euros a week uh throughout january and february and are now getting 350 and we're saying that's not sustainable and that's not what was intended in the first place and but it was done for the right reasons yeah he went way over time that look t-shock your minister has talked about cutting and tapering okay uh uh regina doherty said it was unsustainable to continue the covert uh payment deputy rabbit for fianna fall similarly he said it was unfair and unsustainable now it isn't those are for people who are earning multiples suggesting that it was unsustainable unfair that it needed to be caught that's what they said uh now if you're backtracking good but i think you should give a clear commitment to people like lisa to people like workers in the arts in retail taxi drivers and so on who may face protracted periods where through no fault of their own they will not be able to get back to the earnings they were previously earning or employment at all that you will not cause the covert payment for them thank you deputy that's the commitment we need very briefly please thanks debbie i think you're making a different argument and that is that everyone should be paid the exact same no matter what job they do and i appreciate that's your political position but that's not the position of very many people in in this country um in terms of tapering uh in in terms of what people mean when we talk about tapering it's important to bear in mind that the only people now who are getting less than what they earned before the pandemic are people who earned more than 350 a week uh they're the ones so if you were earning 700 euros a week or 500 euros a week or 600 euros a week that has been reduced to 350 euros a week separate to that there's a group who weren't earning 350 a week there were earning we'll say 200 euros a week they would all be part-time workers not full-time workers because if they were full-time workers on the minimum wage that would be paying more they're a group that are getting paid more than they got paid uh before the pandemic happened and anyone who's talking about tapering is talking about tapering in the context of making sure that any tapering ensures that um people aren't worse off or sorry aren't better off than they were uh before the pandemic thank you thank you t-shirt exception of people who earned over 350 a week they are already worse off okay thank you