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TÁNAISTE LEO VARADKAR has said that the government was forced to put extra funding aside in the Budget in part due to the possibility of a third wave of Covid-19.
Varadkar was speaking this afternoon and also said that any decisions on whether the country would need to move to a Level 4 lockdown would be taken on Friday.
In his Budget speech this afternoon, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said that €2.1 billion in contingency funding was being put aside for next year, with another €3.4 earmarked for a Recovery Fund to stimulate demand and employment in the context of Covid-19 and Brexit.
Speaking about that funding this afternoon, Varadkar said this money is because we cannot predict what will happen with Covid-19 and that there may be a “third wave” of the virus.
“The reason why we set aside €2 billion in contingency for health and social welfare and €3.4 billion and contingency for Covid and Brexit is that we don’t know what’s going to happen with the pandemic,” he said.
We don’t know when the second wave will end, it will end. We don’t know if there’ll be a third wave and when it will start, how long it might go on for. So we have to be in a position, if needs be, when we look at this again in November around the time when we have the national economic plan done, and in the new year, to make decisions.
Varadkar said that the government will have to examine if schemes such as the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, the wage subsidy scheme and the new Covid Restrictions Support Scheme (CRSS) would be extended beyond the current March date.
The new CRSS provides support for businesses that have had to close as a result of Covid-19 restrictions at Level 3 or higher.
Asked at the same briefing if there is a greater likelihood of moving to Level 4 this week than there was last week, Varadkar said:
“I think we’ll have a better idea on that on Friday. So obviously, we’ll have the up to date modelling from Professor Nolan on Thursday and we’ll be in a position to make any decisions for the country as a whole on Friday.”
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Ye make decision on Level 4 on Friday after all restaurants have got their stock in for the weekend. Have any of these politicians ever run a business!
@John McCann: probably quite a few them running businesses from the Caymans.
@John McCann: How much will a mexican wave cost us
Remember the politicians ring fenced the salaries and ‘entitlements’ of the civil servants who are loving all this. At home on full pay. The civil servants are the ones who are destroying this country for the rest of us.
@BeyondRoom313: well if you stopped complaining and got a job in the civil service you’d be very happy now right ?
@billybigballs: why would I want to rot away for the rest of my life with people who have no guts, ambition, get go or desire to be anything other than congenital losers and whingers making their mammys proud as they have a ‘good pension’.
@BeyondRoom313:Whingers like you?
@BeyondRoom313: You sound a bit sour to be honest. It seems you care about it too much and you should ask yourself why. We need all sorts of people to make the world go round. Everyone can’t be super ambitious successful people and not everyone wants to be. Each to their own.
You Civil Servants and Government Unions shafted the rest of the country by demanding the politicians look after you first and foremost and then left the rest of us to die while we had to listened to this ‘we are all in this together’ lie. Then you declared yourself ‘heroes’. You are utterly vile maggots feeding off the corpse of the Ireland you killed. Only you lot and the rest of Official Ireland were not expected to not make the same sacrifices and as this farce is being revealed for what it is more and more private sector workers are finding out just what a scam you played by shafting the rest of us. The days of your entitlements and ‘gravy’ will end soon. The Public Sector have been revealed as the true bureaucratic pestilence. You won’t get away with it this time.
@BeyondRoom313: calm down mate. Youll give yourself a hernia.
And the pestilent public sector will have to fix you.
The ‘entitlements’ game is up. Within a year there will be the better portion of 1 million unemployed in this country and they are going to notice that it is still all ‘gravy’ and ‘entitlements’ with the public sector. Then they come looking for you…
@Dearbhla O Reilly: the arrogant ‘up yours private sector serfs’ public sector mentality right there. Absolutely no empathy or consideration for the devastation caused by them demanding more and more lockdowns so they could sit at home watching Fleabag on Netflix with full pay.
@BeyondRoom313: For the record I am in the private sector but I don’t understand your hatred for public sector workers. Its misdirected. Don’t blame the player, blame the game.
@BeyondRoom313: your doing a fair bit of whinging yourself, maybe you should think of a carear change
All I can say is thank god I don’t own a pub or restaurant, as for some reason unbeknown to most people they are pretty much taking the brunt of all of this. If we go to level 4 or 5 for the next few months, you’ll be liable to have as much craic in North Korea as you would in Ireland when we do reopen, as there will be no pubs, restaurants, nightclubs, music halls left, and our town and city centres will resemble ghost towns.
@The Firestarter: you’re not wrong but we have to get it under control. Don’t think pubs and restaurants are the problem though, it’s the house parties, schools and sports events, stop all of them instead and I think the numbers will improve quickly. Unfortunately that would involve enforcement and governments hands off approach is allowing the irresponsible to put us all at risk and the Gardaí have no powers to deal with the g*bshites
Maybe if he quotes a few more movies the spread of COVID might slow down.
Good old Leo, always around to grab a headline.
87 people died in Ireland today 3 from covid 50k people waiting on precedures 5k of them are children 150k jobs lost cancer specialists say diagnosed patients have dropped leaving a tusnami too follow people been harassed for not being able too follow guidelines what has our beloved country become a biblical state of depression and oppression but we will prevail with respect too all lives lost love love
They already know what they are doing hospitals and icu are not over run but they don’t care its all about controlling us now, when you have donnelly telling us he will let us know about how we will spend Christmas. I’m an not an animal so please stop trying to cage us up i want to life my life while I can as it is short enough already.
Yea for the well off fluk the poor
Can someone tell me the difference between level 3 and 4 please? From what I’ve seen they are fairly similar?
@Victoria Marshall: like hitting an animal four times rather than 3 to make sure it is controlled.
@Victoria Marshall: fairly big differences I think in that construction may close and retail closes apart from essential in level 4.
@Victoria Marshall: Level 3 I have a job, Level 4 I don’t and many more like me
@Kyle Mac Creddin: ok thanks for that, level 3 has me out of job now
@Victoria Marshall: You wouldn’t be allowed to have visitors in the house and most retail would be closed.
@Victoria Marshall: Leo is the difference. Whatever suits his personal ego and career will be the choice.
The biggest mistake of my life was moving back to Ireland, as soon as this authoritarian Covid crap is over, I’m away again never to return, It’s a constant cycle of FFG, nepotism and cronyism in politics, homelessness, huge mortgages, unaffordable rents with no security of tenure, dreadful health system, cancer/health/catholic church scandals, wasted taxpayer’s money such as the NCH, NBP, increased taxes/rates/levies whether it’s from BOI, AIB, Eir, motor tax, carbon tax, VRT, VAT etc., they couldn’t even get the LC exams organised properly; the list is endless. I’m broken. Politicians give themselves raises because they’re ‘super junior’ and because they think they’re L’Oreal Worth It while the rest of us were still trying to clamber our way out of the last recession – in the meantime, they’re all as fat as pigs eating/ drinking at golf dinners, driving drunk without licences, running up huge bills in the Daíl bar at our expense, they own multiple houses while there are 10,000 homeless, they have personal drivers, dressers, make-up and hair, and they don’t even bother to clock in/out because they have another party member to do it for them AND vote on their behalf as well. It’s so cynical and such an abuse of human decency – I could go on for hours but this country is damaging me and other people I know of all ages – and I haven’t even mentioned Brexit yet.
To any one reading this who has no serious responsibilities or ties, do yourself a favour and move abroad because this country is not for turning under the political regime we’ve had to suffer for 100 years, and it won’t change within the next 100.
Good luck, folks.
Blanked
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