iRadio in the Afternoon speaks to Seán Defoe, Bauer Media Political Correspondent, about the plans to phase out the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.
(Source: Flickr)The government has announced plans to phase out the Pandemic Unemployment Payment between September 2021 and February 2022.
The payment was originally brought in to support people who had lost their jobs because of the pandemic, but as different industries start to reopen, it's hoped the payment will no longer be needed.
To find out more about how people on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment are going to be affected, iRadio in the Afternoon has spoken to Seán Defoe, Bauer Media Political Correspondent.
"On September 7th, the rates are going to reduce by €50 a week across the board. Let's say that you were on the top rate of €350 per week, when it comes to the 7th of September, you're going to be reduced down to €300 a week. The second of the reductions will then happen in November. People who were on €300 then will go down to €250. Then finally in February, it will be reduced down to the rate of €203 per week, which is in line with Job Seeker's Allowance. That's when the Pandemic Unemployment Payment will effectively end with the last payments due to be on the 8th of February."
National Economic Plan
The phasing out of the PUP is just one of the measures recently announced as part of the National Economic Plan.
Seán has also given us a rundown of the main elements of that €4 billion euro package.
"The wage subsidy scheme has been extended and the Covid Restrictions Support Scheme payments to businesses have also been extended until the end of this year. These are payments to businesses that were closed or will have to remain closed. They're also going to get big bullet payments when they do eventually open up to a max of €30,000. There are other new business and sports schemes that have been announced.
"There's a €1 billion euro package based on money from the EU that is largely going to be spent on climate measures, things like home retrofits and also public transport. There's been a big public transport or public rail program announced for Cork and the other cities, Limerick, Galway, Waterford are likely to follow in that vein too.
"There's money as well for the new technological universities that have been set up, about a €40,000,000 euro fund for them. A lot of [the plan] is just rolling over the supports that were there already because that does cost a huge amount of money, but there is also a little bit of investment in there that hopefully could make a bit of a difference long term."
You can listen back to the full interview here:
