Potential legal challenge over fairness to influence 'tapering' of Covid-19 unemployment pandemic payments

The Government is open a legal challenge on the basis of the unfairness of its Covid-19 welfare payments and will likely have to raise the standard weekly unemployment payment when it starts reducing the pandemic payments in the coming months, a leading adviser to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, or Ictu, has said.

The Government is open to a legal challenge on the basis of the unfairness of its Covid-19 welfare payments and will likely have to raise the standard weekly unemployment payment when it starts reducing the pandemic payments in the coming months, a leading adviser to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, or Ictu, has said.

The number of people who have lost their jobs or forced to tap some type of Covid-19 payment has raced to 1.24 million and the Government has talked about “tapering”, which means reducing, the payments and to cut the €1.5bn minimum monthly cost of the two main payments, as parts of the economy start up again in the coming months.