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SOCIAL PROTECTION MINISTER Heather Humphreys has defended the government’s decision to cease social welfare payments for those who have travelled abroad for non-essential purposes.
Since 7 July, 104 cases of Pandemic Unemployment Payment have been stopped after people receiving that payment were found to have travelled abroad for non-essential reasons during a screening process at airports.
This has been labelled as “unfair”, “misguided”, and discriminatory by TDs, who argued that only one cohort of the Irish public are being punished for not obeying an advisory; the Irish Council for Civil Liberties has also suggested the ministerial order by which it was implemented has no legal basis.
“The public travel advice is to not travel abroad, and that applies to everyone,” Humphreys said on RTÉ’s News at One.
“So for example we have 340,000 public servants in the country, and if any one of those chose to travel abroad, they would not be paid for the two-week quarantine when they return,” she said, adding that private companies had the same policy for any of their workers who travel abroad.
The Minister said that under normal circumstances, a person receiving social welfare can travel abroad, but added “the point is we’re not in normal circumstances… we have temporarily suspended the flexibility” of the Covid-19 unemployment payment, she said.
In response to a change over the weekend on the Gov.ie site, which now says that in order to be eligible for the Covid unemployment payment, the person must be “genuinely seeking work”, Humphreys said:
“For some whose industry hasn’t opened back up again – obviously if you work in a pub, you’re looking to get your job back there again – for others, they should be looking for work.”
But the point is if you’re on the unemployment benefit at this point in time, and if you don’t have a job to go to, then you should be actively looking for other work.
In the case of some sectors for example if you work in a pub, we’re hoping that you will be able to go back to your job, so you don’t have to be looking for work in that situation.
But if you find that you’re going to be permanently unemployed because your job isn’t there, then you should be looking for work.
Humphreys said: “We are at a crucial stage in dealing with this virus and as we look across the world we see other countries reintroducing restrictions.
The Irish people have suffered so much and no one wants us to go back. In relation to travelling abroad the public health advice is very clear – do not travel abroad except for essential reasons.
Humphreys said that she wanted to be “very clear” on the topic that if someone on a social welfare payment has travelled abroad for essential reasons, then “you will continue to get your payment”.
Checks at the airport
Musician Ciarán Cooney, who was receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, told Liveline that he was one of the people who had their payment cut after visiting his girlfriend after not having seen her for 15 weeks.
He said that two plain clothes members of An Garda Síochána approached him at the airport. Cooney said that they looked at his passport and ID for what they said were “immigration purposes”, and was never told that it was related to his social welfare payment. They did not ask for his PPS number.
“If I knew my payment was in jeopardy [because of the flight...] I probably would have reassessed the situation and not went,” he said.
Ciarán Cooney / TwitterYou may not have access to this data! However, either yourselves or airlines should inform passengers that they may be subject to questioning and additional ‘immigration checks’ by members of the Gardaí before boarding their flight which can result in loss of PUP!
— Ciarán Cooney (@redcooneymush) July 27, 2020
He said on the Department of Social Protection later notified him that his payment would be stopped because of a flight he took on 7 May, and that the Department knew the details of his flight – the time he flew, the airline, and the fight number.
It took six weeks for his payment to be reinstated, and he is also six weeks in arrears. They did not ask when he returned, and he had to get help from his local TDs Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty and Independent Carol Nolan to get his payment reinstated.
In response to the anger and queries arising from this issue, including concerns about how the private data of passengers is being handled, Dublin Airport said:
For the avoidance of doubt, we can confirm that we are not sharing passenger data with any third party agencies.
“In fact, we have no access to such passenger data. We cannot comment on the actions of any third party agencies.”
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This is not new news. Employees and people in cork knew that this was coming down the line for the past 18mths. I know plenty that are planning on taking redundancy and are happy to do so as they are earning decent salaries, and many have been in the job a long time and are looking forward to nice fat redundancy cheques. Good luck to them I say.
So, not necessarily hard times you say, it might well be the end of hard times.
So , if as you say ”Employees and people in cork knew that this was coming down the line for the past 18mths.”… Why did the government not ”do ” something to prevent it ,or why was it not announced before the vote last Thursday ?
I will tell you why and that is the same reason Irish Rails job losses were not announce because the government knew it would have effected the way people would have subsequently voted. The same way they announced all the new jobs , which in fairnes will probably not come to anything til 2015.
If those people, in pfizer, get a good redundancy package I would take it too and run…
Susie, please don’t ask sensible questions. The Ffg/Labour auto-bots cannot process sensible questions. Their supreme leader is infallible.
Susie read the article. The patent on one of their main drugs is running out. They can’t afford to keep producing it against rivals who will make it on the cheap. What do you want the government to do exactly ?
Susie, Lipitor came off patent here. It is no longer viable for pfizer to manufacture it, as all the generics can do it now.
This brings the cost of a medicine down, albeit at the cost of those jobs.
Pharma is a huge industry in cork, especially in little island and ringaskiddy. Experienced pharmacutical workers are in demand down here. Those workers will get reducdancy packs, and shouldn’t have much difficulty picking up a new job in one of the many other tabletting plants nearby.
What do you think the govt should “do” in this situation? To me it looks like the timeline of normal pharma business.
Hopefully a new drug will be produced at the plant between now and next year and the jobs could be saved.
Good points Susie yet again.
Vote Yes for Jobs
And a no vote would have preserved the patents on drugs produced in Ireland? This news has absolutely nothing to do with any government or EU change to the business environment in Ireland.
Oh I know that – you see before I made up my mind on which way I was going to vote. Every single job announcement on this website was followed with the Vote yes for jobs when they had nothing to do with “any government or EU change to the business environment in Ireland”, so using the same illogical logic I say “Vote Yes for Jobs” now.
Terrible news…
While I voted no this has nothing to do with treaties just as a previous poster said the patents hav run out and it’s now an open market.
It may mean that with patents expiring the price will go down thus demand may rise in areas where they previously it was not bought.
No sign of Enda Kenny or Richard Bruton! I mean Enda was first to get his face in when a whole 40 new jobs were being announce a couple of weeks ago!
What can he do that’s beyond his power
Peter, according to your logic, its OK for Enda to do photo ops when jobs are announced, and its doubly OK for Enda to scurry away into some hole when Job losses are announced. Damn the FFg/Labour auto-bots are simply sickening. Its solidarity that the people want to see, not some moron who only shows up to get his Photo in the papers and news when job announcements are made, He is a lieing, obnoxious traitor, who wouldnt debate the referendum, but is happy to be seen anywhere that makes him look ‘good’.
Cal, local TD Simon Coveney has been out today to express his regret at the job losses.
The only thing this has to do with the treaty is the timing of the announcement, like with Dublin bus. Openness and transparency alright!
Good luck to all effected.
Generic = cheaper,so every cloud eh
This was always on the cards as the life cycle of Lipitor was coming to an end and as others have said it was known 18 months ago. It is also the reason why the pharma companies are looking towards biopharma as a solution to the problem of patent expiration due to the complexities of producing generic or bio-similar drugs even if the patent has finished.
One thing the health boards can do, is to make sure that the cheaper generic medicines, which will be prescribed, are manufactured in Ireland.
A sad day
Expect more of this, alot more. To all those in the HSE wishing to push down drug prices to ridiculous levels there will be consequences to your actions. Generic substitution and more importantly reference pricing at the dispensing end in no way guarantee that the generics the government pays for are actually manufactured here, probably the contrary in fact. This doesn’t even begin to address drug “shortages” which in actuality are simply manufacturers diverting supply to more profitable larger markets than Ireland.
have your say