Extending €1,000 pandemic bonus 'simply not possible' – Michael McGrath

Michael McGrath said that among those who will receive the bonus are public service health and ambulance workers who were working on-site in Covid-19 exposed environments. Picture: Collins 

Extending the pandemic bonus to other groups is "simply not possible" as it would cost more than €500m, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has warned.

Michael McGrath has told the Dáil that the Government has decided to prioritise frontline healthcare workers for a €1,000 one-off payment as widening it out would be very costly to the State.

"The truth is that if the Government were to seek to meet all the legitimate calls that have been made to extend this pandemic payment, the cost of it would become very large. One could potentially be talking about €500 million or more.

"Unfortunately, that is simply not possible. We would all love to extend this payment to a wide range of workers and volunteers, without whom our experience of Covid would have been much worse," Mr McGrath said.

Sinn Féin TD Mairead Farrell called on the Minister to include carers in the bonus as she said they would not benefit from an extra bank holiday, which was also announced by the Government.

Responding, Mr McGrath said that the carer's support grant had been increased to €1,850 last year.

He added that Minister Heather Humphreys is examining the issue of pension rights and pension access for carers.

Recognition payment

Mr McGrath said that among those who will receive the bonus are public service health and ambulance workers who were working on-site in Covid-19 exposed environments, those seconded to the HSE including Defence Forces staff who were assigned to testing centres, students who were required to perform training in clinical sites, and staff working on-site in private-sector nursing homes and hospices that were affected by Covid-19.

"In arriving at a conclusion on this issue, we felt the need to prioritise the front-line public health workers, in particular, who left their home and went to work in a high-risk environment at a time, particularly at the start of the pandemic, when the risks were unknown and thought to be significant. 

"That is why we singled out that group for this recognition payment."

However, speaking on radio, the Taoiseach appeared to leave open the door to an expansion of the payment.

"It's a very difficult area. But I think we're going to look at certain categories, basically people who were in that frontline, who were engaging with the public and with the patients in particular and people coming forward in the medical arena and in the health arena. 

"There was clearly a higher risk within the healthcare arena, without the people in the frontline and our health services we couldn't have come through Covid and they have to be the priority," Micheál Martin told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.