Varadkar: PUP won't be restored to €350 for workers in border counties

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said the PUP 'was only supposed to last for 12 weeks'. Picture: Julien Behal

There will be no restoration of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) to €350 for people in border counties who lose their jobs due to the move to level-four restrictions, but the payment may not be reduced in January as previously planned.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar also said that businesses in Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan will be prioritised when they apply for the Covid Restriction Support Scheme (CRSS).

Taking Leaders' Questions on Thursday, Mr Varadkar said that the PUP was "only supposed to last for 12 weeks".

"But to ensure that we could keep it going, we had to link it to a person's previous wages.

"In terms of any further reductions that may occur in January, that is something that is going to be kept under review by Government. We have set aside contingency funds in the budget, to allow us to extend that January deadline. If we're still in the teeth of the pandemic then that flexibility is open to us to extend that deadline and we will give that consideration."

Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty told Mr Varadkar that people in the three counties needed the restoration in light of the latest restrictions. He said that the cut to the payment last month had "removed vital financial supports" from people.

"The public health restrictions create huge difficulties for our people. But we can get through this, but only if the support is there to help people through it.   

"Thousands of workers in the three counties that have entered level-four restrictions will lose their jobs this week, they'll fall back on income supports that have been cut. But they still have the rent to pay.  "They still have their mortgage to pay to the banks, they still have to cover the cost of childcare, they still have to put bread on the table for their families and for themselves. This is a time of worry, it's a time of stress, it's a time of anxiety."

The public health restrictions create huge difficulties for our people. But we can get through this, but only if the support is there to help people through it.

Mr Varadkar said that the basics of stopping the spread of Covid-19 remained the same  — handwashing, distancing, cough etiquette — remained the same  "whether we're at Level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 26".

Wexford independent TD Verona Murphy raised the issue of testing and tracing, saying that the system had failed. She pointed to a case of a local GAA player who had not been contacted as a close contact of a positive case for six days. The man's girlfriend works in a nursing home which now has an outbreak, she said.

Mr Varadkar said that people were looking for "someone to blame" but said that the system, and those running it, were working at maximum capacity.