Covid-19 subsidies to cost €5bn; People on some form of state support reaches one million

The number of people unemployed or receiving some sort of emergency payment amid the Covid-19 economic crisis is in touching distance of one million — just over four weeks after the start of the lockdown.

And the cost of the schemes covering the main €350-a-week pandemic payment and the wage subsidy payment alone has now been budgeted at between €4bn and €5bn over the 12-week period to late June, compared with an original estimate of €3.7bn, the Department of Finance has said.